Spongata

Spongata is a flat, round sweet from northern Italy in which a filling of fruit, nuts and spices is wrapped in thin pastry. When the powdered-sugar-dusted crust is cut, a thick layer of brown filling bound with honey is revealed inside. From the plains of Emilia, across the Apennines to the Lunigiana area of Tuscany, and on to Liguria, there are versions of spongata particular to each locality and maker.

Inside the Thin Crust

An example from Busseto presented by the Emilia-Romagna region contains apples, toasted bread, almonds, raisins, walnuts, pine nuts, candied orange and citron, and spices. The chopped ingredients are combined with hot honey and left to rest overnight. The next day, a large sheet of rolled-out pastry is laid in a mold, the filling is spread over it, a second sheet is placed on top, and the edges are pressed together before baking. The contrast between the thin outer crust and the thick filling of mixed fruit and nuts is the defining quality of this sweet.

In the Lunigiana method presented by the Tuscany region, dry bread and spices are added to honey that has been simmered with white wine, and almonds, walnuts and hazelnuts are then mixed in. The mixture is taken off the heat, alcohol, candied peel, raisins and pine nuts are added, and it is left to rest until the next day. The filling is sandwiched between two sheets of pastry, the edges are sealed, holes are pricked in the top with a fork, and it is baked. The bread, as part of the filling, takes in the honey and nuts, and a cut slice reveals a variety of ingredients. In some examples, the spices include not only cinnamon but also nutmeg and pepper.

Across the Mountains, Into Individual Shops

One example presented as a sweet of Pontremoli uses apple jam and toasted bread in addition to honey, candied fruit and nuts. Tourism materials from the same town also introduce a filling containing cocoa. Meanwhile, at Gemmi, a pastry shop in Sarzana, Liguria, an apple and pear compote is combined with almonds, pine nuts and candied citrus and wrapped in thin pastry. The shop’s pastry maker describes the process of spreading the filling in a wooden mold, covering it with the crust and trimming it into a neat round.

Materials from the Emilia-Romagna region also describe the spongata of Corniglio. This is an example that combines honey, toasted bread, nuts and raisins with mostarda, fruit cooked in syrup with a pungent flavoring added. The appearance of the top, pricked with holes, also shows the local way of making this sweet.

Gifts and the Memory of Shops

In Busseto it is known as a Christmas sweet. In Pontremoli, according to materials from the Tuscany region, there was once also a custom of young men giving it to their fiancées during Carnival. The festive season is not limited to one, which suggests that it was handed down through being eaten at home and given as a gift. At Gemmi in Sarzana, the shop’s pastry maker says that they began making year-round what had formerly been made mainly for Christmas. The shop’s recommendation is to warm it to bring out its aroma and pair it with a sweet wine.

In Pontremoli in the 19th century, the confectioner Marcantonio Ceppellini refined his own spongata. According to a 2003 report by the culinary academy, in 1916 his son handed over the recipe book, the wooden molds for the sweet and other tools, along with the business rights, to the next owner. Not only the recipe for the sweet but also the tools used to shape it were passed on from shop to shop.

The name of the sweet also appears in 17th-century poetry. In Canto 12 of Alessandro Tassoni’s mock-heroic poem La secchia rapita (The Stolen Bucket), 50 spongate are listed among the gifts from the city of Modena to envoys. This is a description of a gift within a poem, not evidence that the sweet of that time had the same recipe as today’s.

The food historian Claudio Benporat noted that the name spongata appears in a letter sent in 1454 by Giovanni Botto of Parma to Francesco Sforza, Duke of Milan. While the name has been known since early times, how the sweet of that period connects to the present-day recipe is not known. Some theories point to similarities with ancient Roman sweets of fruit and honey, or to links with Jewish food culture, but the existence of similar ingredients alone does not determine where the present form came into being.

As for the name, one theory connects it to a word meaning “sponge.” Some explanations focus on the holes in the crust, while some makers think it comes from the appearance of the filling, so the origin of the word cannot be pinned down to one explanation.

Glossary