On a trip to Tuscany in 2011, I visited Pitigliano, a small medieval town located on a tuff hill in the southern part of the region, overlooking a green valley. The town was known for centuries as La Piccola Gerusalemme, little Jerusalem, not only for its physical resemblance to the way Jerusalem was imagined, a fortified city surrounded by a wall at the top of the hill. It was named Little Jerusalem also thanks to a strong Jewish community that flourished there since the 16th century.
I wrote about Pitigliano here, about the narrow streets of the old Jewish ghetto, the 400 years old synagogue and the kosher communal matzo oven. The strong relations between the Jewish community and the people of Pitigliano were kept throughout the years, even when the Jews were forced by law to settle only in the ghetto. Neighbors shared their food and Christian children attended the Jewish day school in town. When the Nazis came, farmers from all around Pitigliano hid the Jews in the green valley underneath.
Pitigliano became a relatively large Jewish center when Jews from nearby areas, including Rome, Siena and Florence, seeking refuge from Papal persecution, settled there from the middle of the 16th century.
But not long after, in 1622, Cosimo II of the Medici family, the grand duke of Tuscany, ordered the Jews to concentrate and settle in one small area between Via Zuccarelli and the walls over the cliffs which overlooked the valley. Landlords came with sticks, banging on the Jewish houses, evicting them into the new ghetto.
And why the depressing long story before Rosh Hashanah? Trust the Jewish spirit to turn the eviction into a sweet revenge. About a hundred years later, Jewish bakers of Pitigliano came up with a new stick-shaped pastry, filled with honey and walnuts, and named it Sfratto, “eviction” in Italian. Think of Humantaschen, Haman Ears, as another example. The pastry is officially known as Sfratto Dei Goym “eviction of the Goyim”.
Thin dough made with white wine wraps a filling of honey, ground walnuts, orange zest and nutmeg, a combination that was popular in the region since the Etruscan times. The filling is prepared by cooking the honey and mixing in all other ingredients. The pastry is shaped into a long 10”-12” roll, like a stick, and is thinly sliced when served. Although it is not very appealing in its looks (it resemble a large, dry, boring breadstick) it is so tasty. Our supply that we got in a small bakery in Via Zuccarelli was gone before we even got home.
Traditionally, the sweet pastry was served on Rosh Hashanah. In a book by a former Pitigliano Jewish resident Edda Servi Machlin, the Classic Cuisine of the Italian Jews, she explains that serving the sfratti on Rosh Hashanah had a symbolic reason “To ward off the possibility of future evictions and as a wish for a good, sweet year”. The goyim learned the of symbolic trait from their Jewish neighbors and started serving sfratti in weddings “to ward off any martial battle”.
Today sfratto dei goym is available in Pitigliano year round, but in this town that has only three Jews left, sfratto is mainly known as a Christmas cake…
Sfratto dei Goym is now protected by the Slow Food Association in Italy as a traditional specialty of the region. And it is easy enough to prepare at home, for this Rosh Hashsnah, and may we not be evicted this coming year.
Sfratto Dei Goym (Eviction of the Goyim)
Course: DessertCuisine: Italian, JewishDifficulty: Medium24
servings30
minutes55
minutesSfratto Dei Goym, “eviction of the goyim” in Italian, is a Rosh Hashanah sweet pastry from the town of Pitigliano in Tuscany.
Serve the cake with sweet wine.
Store in a container at room temperature.
INGREDIENTS
- For the dough
1.1 lb. flour
8.8 oz. sugar
1 cup white wine
1 teaspoon Vanilla sugar or vanilla extract
3 tablespoons of olive oil
1 egg yolk
- For the filling
1.1 lb. honey
1.1 lb. chopped walnuts
Diced rind of one orange
A pinch of nutmeg
A pinch of anise seeds
DIRECTIONS
- Cook the honey for 30 minutes on low heat in a saucepan. Mix occasionally. Remove from the heat and add walnuts, orange peel, nutmeg and anise seeds. Stir well until the mixture is homogenous and leave to cool.
- Oven to 300 degrees.
- Prepare the dough by mixing together the flour, sugar, vanilla sugar or extract, olive oil and wine. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough out until it is thin. Cut into strips approximately 14” x 4”.
- Arrange the filling along the length of the centre of each pastry strip, leaving sufficient room on either side to close each one. Close the Sfratti and brush each one with egg yolk. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. cool on a rack.
- To serve, cut into thin slices. Serve with a glass of sweet wine.
