amarena-cherries,marciano-cherries,fruit-syrup,zeppole,cannoli,sicily,italian,candied,clafouti,garnish,sweet,bitter,red
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Credit: Todd Coleman
As we tested cannoli and
zeppole recipes for this issue's
feature on Sicily, we made a discovery we haven't stopped talking about since. Luscious, intensely flavorful
amarena cherries, the garnish called for in both recipes, aren't, truth be told, even Sicilian. They're a product of Emilia-Romagna, where local wild cherries—a fleshy, dark red variety with a flavor that's both sweet and scrumptiously bitter (or
amare in Italian)—are preserved in a rich syrup made from the juice of the same fruit. saveur contributing editor Nick Malgieri recommended the
amarene in place of ordinary candied cherries, and we've been finding no end of excuses to dip into the jar—itself a thing of beauty, from the Italian company Fabbri, which has produced the preserved cherries for nearly a century. We're drizzling the syrup over pancakes. We're dropping the cherries into champagne. On ice cream, in a
clafouti, even in a glass of seltzer—what luxury!
This article was first published in Saveur in Issue #136
