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The recipe. The bitter cocoa pastry, first product of the cocoa bean squeezing was once produced by squeezing the beans on a stone instruments diffused all over the world (the maya people called it metate) to mill any kind of seed, together with a stone rolling-pin.
This dense and very bitter pastry is heated up in a bain-marie with sugar and spices, making no conch and without any tempering; then it is made cold and solid. Originally it was served liquid in a cup, and any notch on the bar from Modica represents a dose.
Nowadays, however, it is appreciated in its solid form, delicious to nibble.
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A legend tells that the Aztec King Montezuma, in 1519, right before being killed by the Conquistadors peacefully welcomed the Spanish Cortes, giving him the very bitter beverage, used in the ritual moments, made with toasted cocoa seeds, maize flour, and hot pepper.
Later the Spanish added sugar to it and diffused it all over Europe, but up today it has been handed down just in Modica, where it probably arrived in the XVII, and in a Spanish town, besides to the indigenous communities in Mexico and Guatemala.
The kitchens of the monasteries in the town were the precious places where the recipes of a very rich gastronomic tradition which matched Arabic, Norman, and Southamerican traditions have been handed down. From those places, thanks to the “house nuns” , they have joined the house and family habits, later renewed and diffused by the local confectioners’.
