Sicilian food history | All Things Sicilian and more

Chickpeas — ceci, or cìciri in Sicilian — have been part of Sicily’s cucina povera’s cooking for centuries. Quiet, sustaining, and deeply rooted in the land, they belong to a cuisine of continuity rather than elaborate dishes.

Ancient Roots

Archaeological and botanical evidence places chickpeas among the earliest cultivated legumes of the eastern Mediterranean. When the Greeks settled Sicily from the 8th century BCE, they embedded ceci into an agricultural pattern based on cereals, legumes, olive oil, and wild greens — a pattern still visible in Sicily’s most subtle dishes.

During the Arab period (9th–11th centuries), chickpeas became even more central. Improved irrigation, crop rotation, and dry-farming techniques made legumes reliable in Sicily’s arid interior. Just as important was a shared culinary philosophy: slow cooking, few aromatics, and respect for the ingredient’s natural flavour and nourishment.

By the Middle Ages, ceci were firmly rooted in inland rural diets, where wheat and legumes formed the backbone of daily sustenance.

In later medieval history, ceci (chickpeas) took on an unexpectedly political role in Sicily. On Easter Monday, 30 March 1282, as crowds gathered in Palermo for Vespers, long-standing resentment against the rule of Charles I of Anjou erupted into open rebellion. According to tradition, the French were identified by their inability to pronounce the Sicilian word for chickpeas without a lisp. What began as a small incident became the spark for the Sicilian Vespers uprising, turning a humble legume into a linguistic marker of resistance and identity.

A Food of Continuity, Not A SHOWPIECE

Sicilian chickpea dishes are understated by design. They reflect cucina povera — not deprivation, but shaped by climate, season, and scarcity. Chickpeas often replaced meat, providing sustenance for households for several days.

On 13 December, the feast of Santa Lucia, chickpeas take on special meaning in Sicily, particularly in Palermo. According to tradition, during a medieval famine a ship carrying grain and chickpeas arrived in the port after prayers to the saint. Too hungry to wait for flour to be milled, people boiled the grains and legumes and ate them whole.

In gratitude, Palermitans vowed to avoid flour on Santa Lucia’s day. Chickpeas — eaten simply or included in cuccìa (dish traditionally made with boiled wheat berries, often mixed with chickpeas). It remain a tradition, a symbol of survival, humility, and collective memory rather than celebration.

Growing and Harvesting

In Sicily, chickpeas are usually sown in late winter or spring and harvested in summer. The plants are left until the pods dry on the stalk, ensuring a dependable winter staple.

Before drying, some chickpeas were eaten fresh — a fleeting seasonal pleasure.

A Note on Fresh (Green) Chickpeas — Ceci Freschi

Before drying, chickpeas were sometimes eaten fresh. Harvested in late spring or early summer, they are pale green, faintly sweet, and closer to fresh peas in texture. Their shelf life is short — less than a week — and they are best cooked simply, as for ceci in umido (recipe below), or eaten straight from the pod while harvesting in the fields.

A fresh chickpea( ceci) plant with pods containing green chickpeas.

Their brief season reflects an agricultural rhythm that shaped Sicilian cooking for centuries: some foods were enjoyed only when the land allowed it.

How Chickpeas Are Traditionally Eaten in Sicily

1. Ceci con Erbe Spontanee (Chickpeas with Wild Greens)

A classic countryside pairing. Chickpeas cook gently while seasonal greens are added toward the end: Wild fennel, Wild Chicory, Dandelion, Borage.

Finished simply with olive oil — sometimes a squeeze of lemon.

2. Minestra di Ceci (Chickpea Soup)

Common in mountainous areas, monasteries, and farming households. These soups were cooked in large quantities and eaten over several days — practical, sustaining, and deeply comforting. Chickpeas simmer in their broth and are often poured over bread placed directly in the bowl. Sometimes broken spaghetti is added. Always finished with olive oil and rather than chilli, black ground black pepper.

3. Panelle

Palermo’s iconic street food: chickpea flour cooked with water and salt, spread into thin sheets, cut into small rectangles or squares, and fried until crisp. Simple, addictive, and unmistakably Sicilian.

4. Ceci in Umido (Stewed Chickpeas)

A dish shaped by restraint. Tomato — a later arrival — is used sparingly or omitted altogether inland. Onion softens slowly in olive oil, garlic perfumes briefly, and chickpeas do most of the work.

RECIPES

I research traditional Sicilian sources, and the most reliable versions of recipes I have found in my books is from Pino Correnti’s Il Libro d’Oro della Cucina e dei Vini di Sicilia. As with many Italian recipes, they are simple and written without measurements.

These dishes belong to an older culinary world, predating tomatoes. They are the kind of sustaining soups that fed farmers, monks, and households through winter.

I include two traditional recipes detailed, more modern Sicilian recipes for chickpeas that are more suited to contemporary cooks:

* Ceci in Umido (Sicilian Stewed Chickpeas)

* Minestra di Ceci (Sicilian Chickpea Soup)

Ciciri ca Pasta a Catanisa
Chickpeas with Pasta, Catania Style

An eastern Sicilian variation, even simpler, is pasta with chickpeas alla catanese. The chickpeas are cooked together with onion and, in the same cooking water, broken spaghetti is added and boiled. The dish is dressed simply with raw olive oil and freshly ground black pepper or chilli.

Ciciri ca Pasta Saccense
Chickpeas with Pasta from Sciacca

The version from the area between Sciacca and Agrigento is simpler. It uses cooked chickpeas mixed with about half a kilo of wild fennel, two cloves of garlic, and tagghiarini made fresh — small lasagne-style strips of dough rolled out by hand on the board just before cooking.

*Ceci in Umido (Sicilian Stewed Chickpeas)

A humble but deeply satisfying dish, served as a light main or contorno.

Ingredients (serves 4)

300 g dried chickpeas
1 small onion, finely chopped
1–2 cloves garlic, lightly crushed
3–4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil (plus more to finish)
2 tbsp tomato passata or 1 tbsp tomato paste diluted with water
1 bay leaf or a small sprig of oregano
Salt and black pepper
Water or light vegetable broth or stock

Method

Soak chickpeas overnight. Drain and rinse.

Cover the chickpeas in fresh water and simmer until tender (40–50minutes). Reserve liquid.

Cook onion slowly in olive oil until soft, never coloured.

Add garlic briefly, then tomato and aromatics. Cook gently.

Add chickpeas with enough liquid to cover. Simmer until the sauce thickens naturally.

Finish with black pepper and a drizzle of extra virgin, fragrant olive oil.

Regional notes

In central Sicily (Enna, Caltanissetta), tomato is often omitted altogether.
It is eaten with bread — bread here is the accompaniment.
This is a dish that reflects Arab influence not through spice, but through method: slow cooking, minimal intervention, and respect for the legume itself.

*Minestra di Ceci (Sicilian Chickpea Soup)

Cucina povera at its purest — chickpeas, aromatics, olive oil, and patience.

Ingredients (serves 4)

300 g dried chickpeas
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, finely diced
1 celery stalk, finely diced
2 cloves garlic
3–4 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil (plus more to finish)
1 bay leaf or wild fennel stems
Salt and black pepper

Optional: potato cubes or greens. In Melbourne, I am unable to purchase wild greens but can buy seasonal vegetables such as chicory, beets/chard and spinach.

Method

Soak chickpeas overnight. Drain and rinse.

Cover the chickpeas in fresh water and simmer until tender (40–50minutes).

Reserve liquid.

Gently cook onion, carrot, and celery in olive oil until soft. Add garlic briefly, then chickpeas and liquid.

Simmer uncovered 15-20 mins, crushing a few chickpeas to thicken.

Add potatoes or greens if using.

Rest, season, and finish with raw olive oil.

Present the soup with: With crusty bread or garlic-rubbed toast or topped with wild fennel fronds

The soup is better the next day — flavours deepen with time.

Chickpeas (ceci),I almost always have jars in my freezer.

OTHER RECIPES

CHICKPEAS and simple food

MUSSELS WITH CHICKPEAS

PANELLE, PALERMO STREET FOOD-Chick pea fritters and the Antica Focacceria San Francesco

CHICKPEAS SOUP WITH WILD FENNEL (Minestra di ceci con finocchio, erba selvatica)

VESPERS and a celebration of chickpeas in BACCALÀ CON CECI alla fiorentina (Salt Cod with Chickpeas as cooked in Florence)

PASTA con cavolofiore, salsicce di maiale e ceci (pasta with cauliflower, pork sausages and chickpeas)

The background for many of Sicily’s most celebrated sweets, including cassata and marzipan, were refined in convent kitchens. From Palermo’s Martorana to monasteries in Catania and Agrigento, nuns developed elaborate almond and ricotta desserts for religious feasts and aristocratic patrons, leaving a lasting legacy in Sicilian pastry traditions.

In this post I wish to provide more information about the important role of nuns in Sicilian Convents.

18th-19th century basilica in Noto – Benedictine nuns lived in a cloistered convent next to the basilica.

Ricotta, as is still sold in some parts of Sicily.

Convent Traditions: Nuns and the Art of Sicilian Sweets

The refinement of many Sicilian desserts owes much to the nuns of the island’s convents, particularly from the late Middle Ages through the 18th and 19th centuries. Within the cloistered life of these religious communities, convent kitchens became places of remarkable culinary creativity. Nuns prepared elaborate sweets for major religious celebrations — especially Easter, Christmas and the feasts of patron saints — and over time developed a reputation for producing some of the most refined pastries in Sicily.

Many convents supported themselves financially through the sale of sweets made within their walls. These desserts were often sold through small windows or ruote (turning wooden wheels) that allowed goods to be passed outside without the nuns breaking their enclosure. The sweets soon became sought after by local aristocratic families and wealthy households, who ordered them for weddings, baptisms and feast days.

The ingredients used reflected Sicily’s agricultural wealth and its Arab culinary legacy: almonds, sugar, citrus peel, candied fruits and ricotta. Almond paste, known as pasta reale or marzipan, was especially important.

One of the most famous examples comes from Palermo, where the Benedictine nuns of the Convent of Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio, commonly known as La Martorana, became renowned for shaping coloured marzipan into extraordinarily realistic fruits and vegetables. These sweets, called frutta martorana, were originally prepared for the Feast of All Saints but later became one of Sicily’s most recognisable confectionery traditions.

In Catania, convent pastry traditions also flourished. The Benedictine nuns of the Monastero dei Benedettini di San Nicolò l’Arena, one of the largest Benedictine monasteries in Europe, were known for preparing elaborate sweets for religious festivals and aristocratic patrons. Catania’s rich convent pastry tradition later contributed to famous desserts such as minne di Sant’Agata, small ricotta-filled cakes created in honour of the city’s patron saint.

Further south, in Agrigento, the nuns of convents such as the Monastero di Santo Spirito became celebrated for their almond-based sweets. Their pastries, including delicate almond biscuits and marzipan confections, were closely linked to local almond cultivation and to the Arab-influenced techniques that had shaped Sicilian confectionery for centuries.

Convent kitchens also played an important role in refining the appearance of cassata Siciliana. Through careful layering of sponge cake, sweetened ricotta and candied fruits, and by covering the cake with marzipan and icing, the nuns helped transform what may once have been a simpler ricotta dessert into the richly decorated cassata associated with Sicilian celebrations today.

Although many convents have since closed, their influence remains deeply embedded in Sicily’s pastry traditions. Numerous classic sweets — including cassata, marzipan fruits and other almond-based confections — still carry the unmistakable legacy of convent pastry making, where devotion, patience and artistry were expressed through sugar and almonds.

The contribution of the monsù

The pastry traditions of Sicilian convents later intersected with the work of the monsù, the French-trained chefs employed in aristocratic households from the eighteenth century onwards. While the nuns preserved and developed many almond- and ricotta-based sweets within convent kitchens, the monsù refined and elaborated these traditions, introducing greater technical sophistication and decorative flourish that helped shape the elaborate cassata and marzipan desserts recognised today.

SICILIAN CASSATA and MARZIPAN AT EASTER (Food and Culture in Sicily, La Trobe University)

CASSATA (It is perfect for an Australian Christmas)

MARZAPANE also called Pasta Reale (Marzipan)

CASSATA ( Post no. 2) Calls for a celebration!!!