‘My aunt made these. My father’s family is from Pitigliano. My grandfather was born there. He came to America in 1904.’ An American woman called Kathleen Dickey wrote to me when she saw me write about these intensely cinnamon-scented biscotti, ‘They all made those tozzetti and every Sunday I could smell the cinnamon as I walked in the door for our family dinner.’
I love knowing that this tradition that is holding on by a thread in the ancient place where it was born is alive somewhere else, reviving someone’s family memories through that scent of cinnamon wafting through the air.
I’ve found it difficult to track down any recipes that are even remotely similar to the delicious tozzetti ebraici or ‘Jewish tozzetti’ that I picked up one day at the Forno del Ghetto, a bakery at the mouth of the old ghetto in Pitigliano. I was relieved to know that they did indeed exist outside that bakery – but then the thought dawned on me that perhaps, when the last Jewish families left Pitigliano after the Second World War, they took this recipe with them. Though there is no longer a Jewish community in Pitigliano, a handful of Jewish traditions have survived here. There are still Sfratti, Pitigliano’s best-known baked good; pane azzimo (unleavened matzo or mahtza bread); and these biscotti.
In the biscotti world, almond-studded cantuccini are the best known, especially in northern Tuscany around Florence and in Prato, the town where they were born. In southern Maremma, they are tozzetti, no doubt a tradition that has seeped over the nearby borders of Lazio and Umbria, where they are also common. They’re all similar, of course, but tozzetti are usually made with hazelnuts instead of almonds because they are more commonly available. And then there are mandelbrot (meaning ‘almond bread’) – they’re Jewish cookies that look remarkably similar to classic Tuscan cantuccini, so much so they could be cousins. I can’t help but imagine that tozzetti ebraici are the result of mandelbrot and rustic Maremman tozzetti coming together within the ancient stone walls of Pitigliano. The main feature of tozzetti ebraici is the cinnamon – there’s enough to give these biscotti that hint of coppery brown colour and to perfume the whole house when you pull them out of the oven.