Magico Food - La Mafalda -Traditional Bread Of Sicily

Over the course of its history Sicily has developed a rich agro-food heritage. Amongst its products of undisputed economical, historical and cultural value, bread plays a primary role. In Sicily bread is everything: culture, history, tradition, work, however it also has a unique taste than cannot be recreated. Already at the end of the Medieval period nobody ate any other bread than that made from durum wheat. In the peasant culture of preindustrial Sicily the real man was who ate homemade bread, obtained by the sweat on his own brow. Domestic bread making was typically a job for women: Saturday afternoon, when the worker returned from the field, he found warm homemade bread and some pies or pizza with parsley and oil. One of the most popular and traditional Sicilian breads around was, and still is, the homemade bread made with durum wheat flour, characterized by having tiny air bubbles inside. Its preparation requires a specific process, characterized by a dough with a low water percentage compared to standard preparation. This type of bread can be kept for a long time due to its low water content which makes it less susceptible to molds. This homemade Sicilian bread is also called scaniatu, a Sicilian word which describes how it is kneaded, vigorously using traditional utensils and methods, although today we see a production more and more using modern techniques and tools.
La Mafalda
Of all the different forms of bread most known and popular in Sicily la Mafalda certainly stands out being produced all over the region. The Mafalda is a bread with a golden crust and the delicate and characteristic taste of sesame seeds, it is shaped in different forms, among which for example are the “occhi di Santa Lucia” and the “Corona”, obtained by cutting the form of a crescent moon in two places on the upper side of a lump of dough, ensuring that it is not more than three hundred grams, so that when it rises and bakes it opens up into a fan in the cut part, making it look like exactly like a crown.