Cuccidati are Sicilian Christmas cookies. Every year for as long as I can remember, my grandmother made these delicious biscotti.
On Christmas Eve, my two brothers and sister and I would get to open one present. It was a pair of new pajamas. (It was always a pair of new pajamas). Then my grandmother would give us her gift. It was wrapped in Reynolds aluminum foil and tied with red curly ribbon she bought at Woolworth (the local five and dime store).
We knew what was in it and with smiles on our faces we each opened our own precious package of colorful cuccidati.
I have very vivid memories of my grandmother’s kitchen where I watched her make this Sicilian specialty. She used a hand grinder. It took all day to make the filling and a week or more for it to mellow. Preparing the cookie dough and the actual making of the cuccidati took several days … days I loved because I got to help.
(I loved to cook and bake). But, especially, because we had to taste one from each batch to make sure they were perfect!
It wasn’t until I was in my late twenties that I learned how to make this special treat myself. Jack and I had been married for a couple of years when we took my mother (a pretty good cook but not much of a baker) and her mother to our cabin in the Sierra’s.
My grandmother didn’t use recipes. She just added a pinch of this and a handful of that. I watched closely and took meticulous notes of the laborious task taking place in my kitchen in the mountains that day.
As the years went by our packages of cookies got smaller … and then disappeared altogether. For many years there were no aluminum foil wrapped gifts under the tree.
In June of 1994, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and not expected to make it to Christmas. In early December, with no appetite and existing on protein shakes, I asked her what I could possibly make that she would eat. With a hint of childlike happiness in her voice, she softly said, “I would really enjoy some of my mother’s Italian fig cookies.” When I went home that evening, I turned my house upside down and inside out, looking for that recipe.
By Christmas time my mother had her cuccidati. She didn’t eat much, but the smile on her face and the love in those big beautiful brown eyes of her’s spoke volumes and for a short while I witnessed a glimmer of that familiar Sicilian fiestiness and a renewed sense of energy and spirit. She passed away a few days later.
And so, the tradition of the aluminum foil wrapped packages continues. They are made with more love than you know and are to be shared with family and good friends!
May you and your family feel the same joy and happiness this holiday season as you share your cuccidati.
Buon Natale!
Just as my grandmother did for me many years ago, another generation opening her first cuccidati made with love by her Nonna.
I love you Rylie!!!
