There are still a handful of bakeries and little shops in Pitigliano that sell these stick-shaped, hardy rolls of pastry filled with walnuts and honey. These delicious pastries are the town’s most famous gastronomic tradition, and have survived despite their origins in the Jewish community, which no longer exists in Pitigliano.
The pastry’s name comes from the Italian word for eviction, sfratto, and it is no coincidence that their stick-like appearance matches that of the batons once used by authorities attempting to evict Jews from their community.
Edda Servi Machlin writes, ‘Much of Jewish food lore is based on reproducing, in a sweet form, some symbolic item of unhappy events of the past as a reminder of the constant and dreadful danger of their recurrence and also to ward off such a possibility.’ Almost like a good luck charm. In fact, even the non-Jewish Pitiglianesi adopted this idea, and sfratti became a must-have to serve at weddings and other special occasions, for good fortune.
This recipe is adapted from Edda Servi Machlin’s in The Classic Cuisine of the Italian Jews. Sometimes you’ll find the pastry made like a shortcrust pastry, which would be crumblier and softer and some like to brush the sfratti with beaten egg yolk for a shiny glaze. But I like this one of Edda’s, which is hard (almost brittle), but thin and so basic. It is more like the ones I’ve tried from Pitigliano.