We are drawn to certain things, places, people, in what appears to be a haphazard way. A few of my university friends used to say there was no obvious pattern in the pubs, bars and restaurants I liked. They were surprised that I disliked an old pub they thought I would enjoy, on the basis that I generally enjoy old pubs. Conversely, they were confused when, after my exams, I spent most of my mornings in an ugly new café on the High Street — bright, minimalist and devoid of history — which for some reason made me feel relaxed and at ease.
There is some pattern to everybody’s habits, but it is often so complicated, buried, and ridden with contradictions that it is difficult to identify. Perhaps it is especially hard to identify your own patterns, to think about why you like what you like. This is compounded by the fact that our own patterns are not just personal to us, but are also socially conditioned. I was taken aback by the extent to which the current season of Vittles, on food production, has involved questions of taste. But, the more you think about it, the more you realise that taste, too, is produced: by things like marketing, and industry awards, or even the words we use to describe food. Which of my preferences are my own, and which ones merely reflect my environment? The two are impossible to disentangle.
It was with these caveats in mind that on the bus journey to Piana degli Albanesi, my partner Diya and I developed a grossly subjective set of criteria for judging cannoli. These ricotta-filled tubes of deep-fried pastry are available throughout the island, and are sold as archetypally Sicilian sweets in much of the world. London has plenty, and they vary wildly in quality. But sooner or later, the search for the ideal cannolo takes you to Piana. This is not by chance: the Palermo café that makes my favourite cassata buys its ricotta from Piana, which has a reputation, among other things, for especially delicious sheep’s milk.
Piana is a town south of Palermo, home to Italy’s largest Arbëreshë or Italo-Albanian community. The Arbëreshë arrived in Sicily as refugees from the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans, and founded the town in the fifteenth century. Their language, a dialect of Albanian, is still widely spoken in Piana, and it has a protected status there, appearing on street signs alongside Italian. There is plenty to learn in Piana, but we only had half a day here, and we could only concentrate on one thing. We picked cannoli.
Cannolo #1 came from Bar Salvatore Cuccia, which was closest to our bus stop. We caffeinated at the bar and escorted our cannolo, wrapped beautifully to take away, to a nearby car park with a mountain view.
Like no other cannolo I had ever eaten, Cuccia’s ricotta tasted so intensely of sheep’s milk — of the mountains! — that it bore little resemblance to the urban cannoli I know and love. Palermo and Trapani, where I had had the next-best cannoli of my life, could never produce such a thing. I had the sensation that, in the same way Guinness tastes best in Dublin, and becomes slightly less good (but still glorious) every kilometre you travel from its epicentre, so too are cannoli best eaten here, as close to the sheep as possible. Our initial idea was to judge the casing by crunch. Cuccia’s pastry could give you a serious mouth ulcer, which for me of the sign of a good cannolo. There is no pleasure without danger.
Cannolo #2 came from Bar Di Noto, where we also bought a big bottle of water for our morning hike. Bar Di Noto spotted that we wanted to share our cannolo and they cut it neatly in half, which was aesthetically ruinous but strictly egalitarian, so I didn’t mind it. The casing was as crunchy as the first, but Bar Di Noto’s ricotta was a case in point for a problem I had already been warned about in Palermo.
Eating this cannolo I did not just perceive a generalised sweetness, as I had at Cuccia. Instead, against my teeth I felt the friction of individual grains of sugar, which saturated the ricotta filling. In my mind I pictured my dentist rubbing her hands together with glee. All the things that made Cuccia so special — the cheesy funk of the ricotta, against the acidity of the dark chocolate chips — was overpowered by a monotone sweetness. Put simply, this cannolo was too sweet for me (this is a good place to reiterate that this is a deeply subjective endeavour).
This set us back considerably. After Cannolo #1, we felt elated, ready to tackle a good number of this town’s eight-or-so pasticcerie. After #2, we began to doubt ourselves. We took a good uphill walk, and only turned back when we had let off some of the nervous energy that only a sudden sugar rush can provide.
Cannolo #3 came from the wonderfully-named Extrabar. Extrabar looks like it might be a bit gimmicky. It has a comically giant, unfilled cannolo in the window, which has gone soft and started to sag. But looks can deceive. What we found at Extrabar was a cannolo that forced us to modify our tasting criteria. The previous two cannoli were crunchy, yes, but their shells were essentially tasteless. Fine, we thought; they are mere receptacles for sweet ricotta, and they were doing their job well.
The cannolo from Extrabar, on the other hand, had a complex, nutty casing, with a pleasant tang that comes from using a decent amount of wine in the pastry mixture. It was sweeter than cannolo #1, yes, but unlike cannolo #2, this sweetness was not at a level that disguised the grassy, agricultural flavours of the fresh ricotta.
This trip was less of a world cup, and more of a group stage. I have come to accept that I am an impressionist, not an encyclopedist. But as it stands, on my last day on earth I would buy a shell from Extrabar to take away. I would bring it to Cuccia, and plead with them to fill it with their perfect ricotta. If I ever got that dream cannolo, it would be at the expense of mortally offending both institutions. Until I can be quite sure that the apocalypse is nigh, I will settle for one of each, so I can remain on friendly terms with the sweet shops of Piana degli Albanesi.