Cosi di Fico
Today we made cosi di fico (Sicilian fig cakes). Italians make fig cookies this time of the year...it's just what we do. Most fig cookies I've seen are sort of Fig Newtonlike, with some families frosting and decorating the cookies. (A good friend's family makes them like that, and they are mighty good fig cookies!)
The cookies we make are a little more involved.
The story goes something like this:
In the village where my great-grandmother lived, there was a cloistered nunnery. Being cloistered nuns, they had a lot of time to get more detailed with fig cookies. They looked around their part of Sicily and made cookies to represent animals and things they saw (with the exception of the slipper shape...that's something my great-great grandmother threw in).
The nuns made fig cookies and passed them on to people in the village.
When my great-grandmother come over from Sicily, she brought the fig cookies with her.
It's a time-consuming process, but absolutely worth making them.
They taste good, too!
Grinding the Figs
Mom and I Making Fig Cakes
Cynthia's Rough Sketches of the Traditional Shapes
Cynthia Forming a Shape
Cynthia's Bird
The First Batch (The Second Batch Was Better Looking)
And Then the Tuaca Came Out...
We'll be making a lot more fig cookies in the coming weeks. We didn't get pictures of the second and third batches. It usually takes a couple batches to really get the cuts down.
The cookies we make are a little more involved.
The story goes something like this:
In the village where my great-grandmother lived, there was a cloistered nunnery. Being cloistered nuns, they had a lot of time to get more detailed with fig cookies. They looked around their part of Sicily and made cookies to represent animals and things they saw (with the exception of the slipper shape...that's something my great-great grandmother threw in).
The nuns made fig cookies and passed them on to people in the village.
When my great-grandmother come over from Sicily, she brought the fig cookies with her.
It's a time-consuming process, but absolutely worth making them.
They taste good, too!
Grinding the Figs
Mom and I Making Fig Cakes
Cynthia's Rough Sketches of the Traditional Shapes
Cynthia Forming a Shape
Cynthia's Bird
The First Batch (The Second Batch Was Better Looking)
And Then the Tuaca Came Out...
We'll be making a lot more fig cookies in the coming weeks. We didn't get pictures of the second and third batches. It usually takes a couple batches to really get the cuts down.