I have always been fascinated with Jewish cuisine based on the Jewish heritage’s diaspora through the ages. Several years ago, we discovered in our family that our paternal grandmother was of Jewish origin. We were raised Catholic in Italy and grew up in total Jewish obscurity. After years of deep research, I began offering Italian Jewish cuisines to my patrons. For over 35 years, I celebrated all the Jewish holidays in my restaurants until I retired from the business in 2018. Well, the story is much too lengthy to cover here, but I promise I will write on the matter in the future. The sweet featured in the column is connected with the Jewish religion, evidencing foods within the 21 Ghettos currently present in Italy.
And so it goes:
Pitigliano is a beautiful medieval town on Tuscany’s southern edge, just a few kilometers from Lazio. The city looks like it has been carved out of the high cliff of tufa that it sits on, looking out over the surrounding valley and ravines from a distance. Its gastronomic claim to fame is related to its unique pastries. Sfratti is stick-shaped, hardy pastry rolls filled with walnuts and honey, remnants of a tradition that no longer exists in Pitigliano — its Jewish ghetto. There is still a handful of bakeries and little shops that sell them.
The pastry’s name comes from the Italian word for eviction, “sfratto.” It is no coincidence that its stick-like shape recalls the batons used by authorities attempting to evict Jews from their community. “Jewish cuisine reproduces in a sweet form, some symbolic items of unfortunate events of the past,” write Edda Servi Machlin in the cookbook, The Classic Cuisine of the Italian Jews (1981), a reminder of the constant and dreadful danger of their recurrence, and also to ward off such a possibility, almost as a good luck charm. In the past, even the non-Jewish Pitiglianesi borrowed this idea and served sfratti at weddings and other special occasions.
Machlin was born in Pitigliano in 1926 into an influential Jewish family. Her father was the last acting rabbi of the town, which, dubbed Little Jerusalem, was once one of Italy’s most renowned Jewish cultural centers. When World War II broke out, she and her family narrowly escaped the extermination camps by hiding in the hills with partisans. They briefly moved to Florence before settling in America in the 1950s. Friends and family encouraged her to write her first cookbook, which includes a delightful and fascinating account of growing up in Pitigliano’s heart in the 1930s and a fantastic selection of traditional family recipes. This mix of Tuscan, Roman, and Jewish specialties includes ricotta-filled pizza, fried artichokes, pappa al Pomodoro pitiglianese, deep-fried mozzarella sandwiches, gnocchi alla Romana, and the famous Italian-Jewish cuscussù—couscous with meatballs and stuffed vegetables. (1)
Let’s move on to make the sfratti together. Follow the recipe below.
Sfratti (walnut and honey pastries)
Ingredients
For the pastry:
375 grams (3 cups) flour
250 grams (1¼ cups) sugar
Pinch of salt
150 ml (2⁄3 cup) dry white wine
80 ml (1⁄3 cup) vegetable oil (I use olive oil)
For the filling:
½ teaspoon of ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon of ground cloves
¼ teaspoon of ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon of ground nutmeg
Zest of 1 orange
350 grams (1 cup) honey
350 grams shelled walnuts, chopped finely
Procedure
For the pastry, combine the flour, sugar, and salt in a bowl and make a well in the center. Add the wine and the oil into the well and whisk the mixture together with a fork, moving from out the center and gradually incorporating more dry ingredients until it forms a smooth but stiff dough. Knead for a few minutes, then set aside to rest, covered in plastic wrap.
Place the honey in a saucepan and melt over high heat. Add the spices, orange zest, nuts, and cook for 5 minutes. Remove and let cool, stirring occasionally. When cool enough to handle, divide the honey and nut mixture into six portions. With wet hands, shape each into a log about 2.5 cm thick.
Divide the dough into six portions. With a rolling pin, roll out strips about 10 x 25 cm. Place honey and mixture log in each strip’s middle and roll the dough around it, covering the filling completely. Roll with both hands to even out the seal and place each completed log of dough and filling on a baking sheet lined with baking paper, seal side down. Make sure the ends of the records are sealed and tucked underneath, too.
Bake at 190ºC (375ºF) for 20 minutes or until the dough is still quite pale and dry to the touch. Let cool and wrap in aluminum foil. Because there are no eggs or dairy in this recipe, the sfratti will keep well like this for weeks without refrigeration. If you can stand waiting, they taste better a day or two after baked.
To serve, cut into rounds and serve with a glass of Vin Santo.
Thanks for reading. Eat safe and wear a mask! Ciao Chef W
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