PALERMO, Sicily — Almonds have been making headlines in the United States, with health benefits like lowering cholesterol and potential colon-cancer prevention coming to light. However, here in Sicily, the almond's historic gateway to the Western world, the best minds are more interested in having something sweet.

On opposite ends of the island, Santi Palazzolo and Corrado Assenza are something like the Odd Couple of master pastry chefs, but for both of them, a whopping amount of what they create is based on or flavored with the nut. Though both chefs have a world's worth of other products at their disposal, they prefer to push their local favorite to the fore with a mix of tradition and innovation.

Santi Palazzolo is the straight-laced Felix of the pair, running the classy Palazzolo café and pastry shop in the town of Cinisi outside Palermo.

I asked how many of his products are made with almonds.

"All of those," he said, making a sweeping gesture toward the top shelf of a 30-foot display case with about 25 different kinds of cookies on it, both answering my question and defining the almond's place in the Sicilian heart.

The Sicilian almond connection can also be understood by crossing the island by car or bus. In late winter and early spring, the countryside is covered by olive, citrus and almond trees, the latter in full bloom that ranges from almost all white to vibrant, bubble-gum pink, depending on the variety.

Sicilians tend to favor native almond varieties such as pizzuta d'Avola, fascionello and romana. California almonds, which have come to dominate the world market after their relatively recent entry, don't hold much truck here.

Conversation with Palazzolo quickly leads to the meeting point between almonds and gelato. Though rarely found as a stand-alone flavor in the United States, here, almond gelato is a Sicilian standard.

"My grandfather didn't have machines to make ice cream," he said, referring to the Palazzolo pastry-shop founder. "One guy would turn the basin (which sat in a salted, ultra-cold slush mix) with his hands while my grandfather would scrape the ice off the inside," he said, demonstrating what looked like a ridiculously labor-intensive procedure.

They've come a long way.

Palazzolo led the way down to his giant basement laboratory, passing through dedicated pastry and chocolate sections before stopping in a tiny room with what looked like three stainless steel washing machines: a pasteurizer, an emulsifier and a chiller.

They aren't sexy, but the process yields incredible results.

Palazzolo divides his gelato into two rough categories: fruit-flavored without milk (though others, like Assenza, call this "sorbet," it's all "gelato" in Palazzolo's book) and "nut and bean" flavors like almond, vanilla or coffee with milk. Members of the latter group spend up to an incredible 24 hours in the emulsifying machine before going into the chiller. Fans find this time well spent because of the incredible mouthfeel the gelato develops.

He also uses huge amounts of different forms of almond paste in his pastries.

While all across Sicily, marzipan is known as pasta reale and is sculpted into anything from fruits and vegetables to sheep and little ham sandwiches, around Palermo, the almond paste is known as frutta di Martorana, named for noblewoman Eloisa Martorana.

"She ran a convent that helped both children and prostitutes — often with a rather direct link between members of the two groups," he explains.

"During a famine, the wheat was lost ... but they had almonds and sugar, so they'd make little sculptures of other foods that created the illusion that they were eating the real thing."

"The convent's occupants would hang the fruit from the trees at night, making it seem as though the fruit was put there by a higher power," adds Palazzolo's friend, Jean-Paul Barreaud, a tour guide and Sicilian history expert. "Sicilians are suspicious, but they're religious."

And they were hungry.

"This is the lineage of Palermo's pastry chefs," said Palazzolo.

Palazzolo's cassata cake is another Sicilian classic and his version is essentially an enormous glop of lightly sweetened ricotta with chocolate chips, walled in by an almond-pistachio paste and genoise, all held together by a glaze and topped with candied fruit.

It's not all classics. Named for his daughter, Palazzolo's torta Laura may be modern French in appearance, but it is Sicilian at heart. It combines almond milk in a cinnamon genoise, covered with a white chocolate and almond glaze.

"Our goal is to produce (confections) of quality, starting with top-notch products," he said.

The nontraditional almond

For those who need more convincing, Corrado Assenza awaits at the other end of the island in the beautiful town of Noto, which is far better known for its baroque architecture than as a culinary hotspot.

Assenza is known for blurring the line between sweet and savory and is both a quiet member of the world's culinary avant garde and a staunch defender of Sicilian gastronomy.

An Oscar to Palazzolo's relatively demure Felix, Assenza seems to operate in some sort of parallel universe and is one of those guys with whom it's hard to tell if you're dealing with a genius or a moron for the first few minutes.

His disarmingly good almond sorbet resolves that problem in a hurry. It's made with almonds and water and sweetened with a touch of cinnamon and honey. "Basta! (That's it!)" he exclaimed.

Like Palazzolo, a huge percentage of his creations are based on the almond, and more specifically, almond paste.

Leaving a shot glass of almond milk in front of me, he walked away, returning only when I had finished. He then placed a jelly jar of his homemade almond cream on the table saying, "This is the base. From this, you can make everything."

It was pretty much the first thing he said and it wasn't terribly clear what "everything" meant.

"These are the bones," he said, pointing at the jar on the table while shaking the knob of my wrist. "We need bones to make this body."

This body" meant Sicilian pastry as a whole; I felt downright flattered to serve as the example.

Mixed with water, his almond cream becomes almond milk. Mixed with a bit of marmalade, it's the perfect center to his delicate Danish.

"We have about 80 products that we make here and about 30 that use almonds and still others where it's just to give a bit of the taste."

Despite a millennium of Sicilian almond history, Assenza is not just sitting around recreating the classics. His prima case a fumo ("before it became smoke") is layers of cocoa beans, almond, marzipan slices and something he calls "tobacco cream," all topped with strawberry cream. He has also come up with what he calls insalata di frutta in coppa di mandorle (fruit salad in an almond cup), a curious and delicious cousin to strawberry shortcake, where the ingredients of the "cup" include olive oil (butter's a rare bird here) and almond flour.

If this is a taste of the future, visitors to Noto and its citizens should look forward to getting older in Sicily.

"We have too many ways to apply our tradition," he said. "We can copy the past, or use our ability to ... interpret it with our eyes, mouth and senses. I prefer the second way."








This cake is a favorite of Santa Fe cooking teacher an caterer Christine Y. Hickman, who lives and works half the year here and half the year in Italy.

POLENTA, ALMOND AND LEMON TORTE WITH MASCARPONE CREAM AND FRESH BERRIES
(Serves 10)

1 pound unsalted butter, softened
2-1/2 cups sugar
6 cups coarsely ground almonds
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
6 eggs
Finely grated zest of 4 lemons
Juice of 1 lemon
2 cups finely ground polenta (cornmeal)
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
Confectioners' sugar for dusting
Mascarpone Cream (recipe follows)
Fresh berries for garnish

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter and flour a 12-inch straight-sided cake pan that is 2 inches deep. A spring-form pan works well for this.

Whisk the polenta, baking powder and salt together.

In a standing mixer or with a hand-held mixer, beat the butter and sugar together until pale and light. Stir in the ground almonds and vanilla. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Fold in the lemon zest and lemon juice, then the dry ingredients.

Spoon into pan and bake in the preheated oven for 45-50 minutes, or until set and cake just begins to come away from the sides of the pan. The cake will be deep brown on top.

Cool on rack for 20 minutes, then gently remove to a serving plate, right-side up. Serve with Mascarpone Cream, berries and a dusting of confectioners' sugar.

MASCARPONE CREAM

1 cup (8 ounces) mascarpone cheese
2 cups heavy cream
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

Place all the ingredients in a medium bowl and whip with an electric mixer set on medium-high speed until soft, fluffy peaks form — 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer to a clean bowl, cover, and chill for up to 30 minutes.


This recipe from Gelato! Italian Ice Creams, Sorbetti & Granite, a recently reprinted cookbook by Pamela Sheldon Johns (Ten Speed Press, 2008, $14.95), credits Corrado Assenza of Noto, Sicily, and the milk he makes from the almonds of Avola, for the inspiration.

ALMOND GRANITA
(Makes 1 quart, serving 4)

2 cups slivered almonds
4 cups spring water
2/3 cup sugar

In a food processor, grind the almonds to a fine paste. Add 1 cup of the water and process with the almonds. Let stand for 1 hour. Strain through a fine-meshed sieve, stirring and pressing on the almond paste with the back of a large spoon to release as much liquid as possible. Set the almond milk aside.

Return the almond paste to the food processor and add 1 more cup water. Process, let stand and strain. Repeat process twice more. Reserve almond milk and discard paste.

In a medium bowl, combine the almond milk and sugar, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Pour into a 9-inch round or square baking dish. Freeze until the mixture becomes slushy around the edges, about 30 minutes. Stir to break up the ice crystals. Continue freezing, stirring the mixture every 20 minutes, until it is slushy, about 1 hour.