[Sca-cooks] Frog's eggs addendum

[Christiane]

>Do you think the Italian cheesecake with the soaked wheat berries  
>eaten at Easter is meant to be made with cuccia as a filling, or is it  
>just made with soaked wheat with coincidental resemblances to cuccia?
>
>Adamantius
>
I think it may have been a regional evolution of cuccia. That cheesecake you're talking about is "Napoletan.'" :-) I do know that some folks in Sicily like to stir sweetened ricotta into their cuccia, making it more dessert-like than a breakfast porridge. I don't think that particular practice was restricted to Sicily, either. Naples being the richest city in the south in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, and cuccia being seen as a rustic food, my guess is some enterprising monzu decided to pretty it up with a latticed pie crust and firm up the filling and make it richer with eggs (making it very appropriate, along with the orange-flower water that is essential for the pie filling, as a springtime treat). 

I'm just speculating here, but the monzu were always taking traditional dishes and amping them up to the nth degree. I would not be surprised if they did it with cuccia.

Gianotta