Island Hopping 2024: Giarratana, A road trip to Catania, Saint Agatha

Friday April 5: We will be staying here until April 28.  During that time several people will be coming to visit with us and they will arrive at the Catania Airport.  Today, Sandy and I took a road trip to that airport just to make sure that we knew the lay of the land.  Driving out of Giarratana, it was only moments before we had our first glimpse of Mt Etna.  It stands in the middle of a plain with smoke constantly coming from the cone. It still has snow on it and we are seeing it from the southern side.  We will be getting closer looks at this famous volcano later in this stay. 

Mount Etna: It is an active volcano.  Note the dark smoke being emitted.

 

Surprising to me, on this mountainous island, Etna rises from a plain that it helped to create.

  These little hilltop and hillside towns are everywhere in Sicily

As we continued towards Catania the roads and traffic became more and more urban.  This is the first time since leaving Palermo that we were back in a large city setting.  We accomplished our mission of figuring out how the roads around the airport worked and how to pay for the parking at the unmanned airport lots.  We went into the terminal to see where our guests will be coming in, and, we think we got it.  Having achieved all this, we felt we deserved a treat.  Which brings me to “minnuzze di Sant’Agata”, Saint Agatha’s Breasts.

Saint Agatha, the patron saint of Catania, was a 3rd-century Christian martyr who met a rather gruesome fate at the hands of her persecutors. Legend has it that after refusing to renounce her faith and marry a pagan Roman suitor, Agatha was subjected to unspeakable torture, including the amputation of her breasts.  And it's these very body parts that are celebrated today, in the form of cupcakes in Catania's culinary culture.  Cupcakes that very much resemble a young woman’s breast.  

The cupcake known locally as "minni di Sant'Agata" or sometimes “cassatella di Sant’Agata” (breast of Saint Agatha) – are not just a macabre tribute to a grisly tale of martyrdom, nor a sort of inappropriate dirty culinary joke.  No, not at all, they’re a symbol of the resilience, the defiance, and the indomitable spirit of the the young Sant’Agata, and through her, the Sicilian people.  

But it's not just the cupcakes themselves that are steeped in history – it's the entire tradition surrounding them.  Every year on February 5th, the feast day of Saint Agatha, the streets of Catania come alive with a riot of color, music, and – cupcakes.  It's a celebration unlike any other, where locals and visitors alike gather, not for the ribald humor of a breast shaped cupcake, but rather to pay homage to the patron saint of their beloved city.

I bought some, they are pretty, they do depict little breasts, and they are delicious.

minnuzze di Sant’Agata