The city of Modica preserves the recipe for traditional biscuits filled with a tasty meat and chocolate filling.
TO Modica there is a recipe for cooking gods cookies truly unique and special. The Sicilian city, in fact, is not only known for its chocolatebut also for these traditional biscuits whose origins date back to at least Five hundred. The famous Modica biscuits are also known by their name breadcrumbs or, in dialect, ‘mpanatigghi.
How Modica biscuits are
The ‘mpanatigghi are biscuits typical of Modica, a Sicilian city in province of Ragusa. The recipe for these traditional biscuits has been handed down from generation to generation generation after generation. These desserts are shaped like a crescent and are filled with a filling made from walnuts, almonds, sugar, cloves, cinnamon, chocolate and beef.
Modica biscuits fascinate and they are curious many people precisely because of the combination of chocolate with meat. The recipe for Modica biscuits has also evolved further variations over the centuries. For example, some people prefer to use the eggplant instead of meat or cooking a single cake pan.
The origin of Modica biscuits
The recipe for Modica biscuits is jealously guarded and its exact nature is unknown.exact original version. However, there are some hypothesis on the origin of Modica biscuits. The most likely one traces the origin of this dessert to 16th centuryduring the Spanish domination in Sicily.
This hypothesis is supported by similarity between the dialect word ‘mpanatigghi with the Spanish term empanadas, which refers to a typical Spanish dish. Furthermore, also thecombination of some ingredients (like meat and chocolate) seem to be attributable to Spanish cuisine.
Legends about Modica and its biscuits
The legend about the origin of Modica biscuits states that in a monastery in Modica there lived nuns with hearts of gold who thought outside the box.
The nuns were moved to pity by the state of fatigue shown by fellow preachers during the period of Lent. In fact, the weeks preceding Easter are considered to be thin. For this reason, during the Lenten days the faithful they don’t eat meat. The nuns solved the problem hiding of meat in the biscuit filling with the aim of giving some energy to the workers.
Cookies full of energy
Probably in the past Modica biscuits were made with game meat. Today, however, they are prepared with the most common bovine meat. The characteristics of Modica biscuits make this dessert suitable for travel since they are characterized by a high nutritional value thanks to meat, dried fruit and chocolate.
