I took this image on my very first trip to the supermarket in Piano del Castel. You know the trip where you’re tired and hungry and looking around for staples of vino and formaggio for dinner, but all these weird strange items keep distracting you from the task ahead, and you end up with a grocery bag that makes no sense, so you go out for pizza!
After some research, Pastiera Napoletana uses these ‘wheat berries’ in a cake traditionally found in Napoli and it is made for Easter. This is not a walk in the park kind of cake. I’ve been looking at recipes for days and let me tell you, it is going to be a hard slog, although it is said, if you can pull it off you can consider yourself a true Italian! It’s obviously not Easter time, but for the next few days it is Ferragosto and having been stuck in Sicily at this time 8 years ago, nothing opens while Mary is assumed, it’s about 3-4 days of religious acknowledgement.
So early this morning I walked the 6k to Piano del Castel COOP (the super, supermarket) and took my time and found orange blossom water, cinnamon (well cinnamon sugar - i’ll adjust the sugar), sugared fruit ( think glace cherries, I went with the sugared orange peel I reckon if I was at home I’d go with the glace ginger because I love it in sweet desserts) flour, vanilla etc and watched the butter soften as I waited for the bus in 40* heat! Miracuously after the 1km walk home after getting off the bus the butter was still contained within its paper binding! phew!
To be continued………………….