What is Sfincione?

(“Sfincione” - "Sfinciuni")

The sfincione is simple food. Originally it was bread dough with olive oil, salt and sometimes cheese and it goes back in time before the Greeks controlled Sicily.  The sfincione was plain bread that working people would take to work for lunch or layered with fresh cheese and honey it would be offered to the gods or consumed on special occasions.
It is believed that the sfincione, being soft almost like a sponge derives its name from the Greek and Latin word “spongia”, meaning sponge, transformed in “spuncione” and  to what is called at present the “sfincione”.
Another theory is that the word sfincione derives from the Greek sphinx, sphingos, in Latin sphingis, converted in vulgar Latin sfincio, which in English translate “strangler”.
In fact this baked dough having little condiment and often baked every few days, would make people choke when it was consumed.
This problem was resolved when more oil was added to the sfincione and even better, onions, salted anchovies, and herbs were added to it to give a fine fragrance and a good taste. Beside the additional ingredients, the technique to make sfincione was improved and this pane condito, stuffed bread was transformed into a pleasant and soft food to eat every day or for that important or special event. The sfincio was not the strangler any more, and when the Arabs controlled Sicily they called it “isfang” meaning soft, later transformed to sfangione and sfincione.
The isfang, i sfingi, were introduced by the Arabs and were soft fritters covered with honey. These fritters made in Palermo were called sfinge and the honey was later replaced with cream.
La sfincia, in our days the popular Saint Joseph pastry, is made of a fried soft outer layer with a ricotta cream filling.

In Palermo the expression “moddu comu na’ sfingia“that translates to “soft like a sfincia” is used in the proverbial language meaning gentle, compassionate and also without character, not strong, soft  in reference to the softness of this pastry.

In the province of Palermo there are three popular types of sfincione: Palermo Style, Saint Vito and Bagheria style.
Because of the few and simple ingredients used, the Bagheria Style is considered the sfincione more similar to the original recipe. In fact it is dressed with olive oil, anchovies, primosale, a fresh cheese and breadcrumbs mixed with grated pecorino, chopped scallions and oregano.
In the convent of Saint Vito, the nuns made a sfincione using two round sheets of bread dough stuffed with onions, olives, potatoes, and grated cheese. In time it was enriched with sautéed sausages without the casing.
The Palermo style sfincione, the kind I am more familiar with, having eaten it since my childhood and made it many times for the holidays, it is sold by the buffettari,the street vendors, or in the bakeries.
The basic ingredients of the original sfincione were sautéed onions, caciocavallo cheese, anchovies, oregano and breadcrumbs. Tomato was added when, in the late XVI century, it was introduced from America.
At the present time, due to the abundance, the competition and the changes in tastes, the sfincione are overloaded with sauces, oil, cheese, anchovies, herbs, spices and breadcrumbs. It is garnished with sliced artichoke hearts, sliced mushrooms, peppers and other ingredients, to give it aromas and features that even if they enhance the flavor, they alienate the sfincione from its original and modest beginning to the present day delicacy.
The sfincione is flat soft bread with few condiments, balanced to produce a light and tasty nosh that smells of fresh bread, onions, tomato, anchovies, cheese and toasted breadcrumbs.
This sfincione is a pleasure to eat, does not bloat you, it is easy to digest and it’s even low in cholesterol!
In making any of the three types of sfincione a simple rule must be followed: the sfincione has to be constructed in layers, that is, all the ingredients used must be placed to cover the entire surface of the dough, so that the taste of all the elements can blend and uniformly give off the delicate scent and the fine taste of it.
Melius abundare quam deficere (Better too much than not enough). This Latin proverb applies in many instances, situations and cases, but never to a sfincione. Sfincione can never be over stuffed; it commands frugality and the sparing use of the ingredients, above all, your attention when baking it. The result will be a delicious delicacy, traditionally enjoyed everyday by Sicilians and surely on Christmas Eve and on New Year’s Eve.
Some food historians claim that the sfincione was introduced in Sicily by the Moors. The sfincione actually goes back centuries long before the Greeks’ or Romans’ controlled Sicily, the simple flat bread was the major component of the everyday diet.
When used as the staple food for soldiers and sailors, it had to be kept for many days.  Therefore, oil was added to preserve it and make it more palatable and acceptable for a longer period of time.  Over time, the additions of onions, cheese, and finally tomato produced what is today’s sfincione.
The Iraqi simbusak that the Saracens were eating in the Iberian Peninsula or in Sicily, was a very different product consisting of fried chickpea dough on the outside, stuffed with meat or cheese.
In the Iberian Peninsula the empanada, like the sfincione, was there before the Moors, and the similarity between an empanada and a simbusak is enormous in taste, due to the diversity of the basic ingredients, cooking and preparation procedures.  Perhaps a distant cousin of the simbusak is the “pane e panelle”, bread and chickpea fritters, where the casing is the bread and the fried chickpea fritters became the stuffing.
The empanada, under other names was prepared and consumed in many European countries, and the Moors mastered the making and introduced the empanada in the Philippines and other Moslem countries while the Spanish and the Portuguese immigrants brought it to the Americas.
Another theory is that the Syrian Sephardic Jews, who, after the Diaspora were numerous in Sicily, introduced to the island the sambusak, a baked flaky sesame seed pastry, in the shape of a half-moon, filled with meat or cheese, and traditionally eaten on the Sabbaths and Hanukah.  
The Jewish sambusak influenced the production of some desserts and snacks made nowadays, consisting of a pastry similar to a turnover, stuffed with various creams, marmalades, cheeses, meat or fish.
The word “empanada” means inside the bread, and in Sicily stuffed breads are also called “impanata’’, or “scacciata”, crushed, or “coddurune” stuck together.