Of bread and sugar
/When I say the word, “bakery” what springs to mind?
I’d wager the image is one of berry tarts and chocolate cakes, or maybe something French like macarons and croissants with lines of baguettes standing at attention behind trim bakers with white aprons. Even if you think of something Italian, given that you’re here, visiting me, where Italy is always half a thought away, my guess is you’re imagining four kinds of bread, and a long display case filled with an unvarying supply of biscotti and pastries, constant at Roman columns.
What I suspect you won’t imagine is my favorite bakery in the whole world, the forno in Spello. It does have a name. Or two, names really— “Antico Forno di Spello” according to the bag and “Forno Artigiano Scarponi” according to the sign over the door that leads to the bakery floor. But nobody calls it anything but the forno.
Like all self-respecting bakeries, you’ll smell my forno before you see it—rising pizza dough and a drift of almonds. The scent can be so distracting that if you tilt you head up to let it linger, you’ll pass right by the window which hosts a seasonal bread design and two doors, one into the shop and one onto the bakery floor, all tucked along an ancient Roman wall. That wall—the remains of an arch, the Arco d’Agosto—might not be a big deal for people who grew up with remnants of ancient civilizations alongside stoplights, but my American-bred eyes never tire of admiring how nestled the forno is against the huge stones with ancient Roman script.
I get to look at it a lot, since the number of people who can enter the forno at a time right now is one. So there’s most often a wait, which finds me standing on Via Giulia, my eyes tracing the old lines, and looking for where that arch might have connected—across the hosta-lined alley that once led to the home I lived in eight years ago? Or across Via Giulia?
Given that I’m doing all that waiting, you’d probably guess the second idiosyncratic aspect of my forno, it’s tiny. You’d be hard pressed to think of a smaller shop of any sort, let alone a bakery. There’s hardly room to turn around, so it’s funny to remember that eight years ago, before the pandemic limited the number of customers within, you’d get three or four people crammed into that space, arguing about the weather and popping their head around the corner to call to the men in their underwear and sneakers, baking bread.
So, are you ready for a tour?
The waxed wooden door sticks when you push it open. It’s only closed, though, when the weather is frosty. On those days, the glass panels steam a bit, so when you peek while passing to spy what items are on display, the customers buying bread have a sfumato glow. On warmer days, the door stands open, with a curtain of beads to keep out flies and also to rustle in a welcoming fashion as you greet the baker.
As you enter, there’s a skinny refrigerator to your left, stocked with milk and butter and yogurt. Even small containers of iced tea, which prove useful for parents stopping in on the way to school to pick up a square of pizza for their kids’ school snack.
There’s barely enough room to close the door behind you, as the display case is right there, two steps from the forno’s entrance.
And here comes the big difference between this forno and every other bakery I know. The options are never the same two days in a row. Yes, there’s always pizza, but sometimes there will be zucchini flower pizza beside the standards of rosemary and tomato sauce. Or more often, onion— onion is my favorite, those caramelized alliums bring out the yeastiness of the pizza. I love serving them with lentil soup or cubing them to enjoy with afternoon spritzes.
There are always biscotti, but sometimes they are the almond ones you dip into a sweet after-dinner liquor (Tuscany’s Vin Santo is the obvious option, but here in Umbria, we like our Sagrantino Passito) and sometimes they have cookies the same shape as those traditional biscotti, but soft and folded around prune or apricot filling. My favorite are the “brutti ma buoni” (ugly but good), which I first had in Rome years ago and was delighted to discover at our forno since our return. Made with egg whites and nuts, they are crunchy and soft in the manner of meringues, and have a mellow sweetness offset by the earthy nuts. Wonderful!
If you get to the forno early enough in the morning, you’ll for sure find breakfast pastries, but there’s often a surprise treat along with the standard fare of cornetti filled with preserves or Nutella or pastry cream (or vuoto, empty, which has oddly become my favorite, as you can enjoy the stretchiness of the Italian croissant best without a filling) and bombe (donuts filled with Nutella or pastry cream).
Somedays beside the cornetti and bombe I’ll find a treat I’ll have to describe because I don’t know its name. It looks like two balls of dough sprinkled with alkermes—a red Italian liquor flavored with vanilla and spices like cinnamon and cloves—joined by a bit of cream. Sometimes that treat is maritozzi, a pastry whose name took multiple visits to nail down. Maritozzi are long buns, filled with whipped cream. The bun is soft and yielding and often there’s a bit of sugar on the outside which make a satisfying crackle before the bun collapses into an unctuous blend of dough and cream. Keith expresses shock that I enjoy them since I don’t like overly sweet things, to which I retort that it’s not sweet, it’s creamy! The bun and cream are both barely sweetened. It’s true it does look a bit daunting, but believe me, I have no trouble polishing one mine and wondering if anyone else might not finish theirs.
I haven’t seen maritozzi lately, which either means they’re taking a break, or that I’m not getting there early enough. For awhile there I got so excited about martiozzi that the lady would sometimes forestall me on my way in by warning, “i maritozzi sono finiti” (we’re out of maritozzi) to make sure I didn’t have my hopes up for too long.
Without the lure of maritozzi, I’ve found a new love that I think I adore even more, le treccie di noci. These are the closest our humble forno gets, in my opinion, to high-end Parisian pastries. The flaky dough is braided and filled with a sweetened walnut paste. They are baked such that bits are caramelized more than others, and the layers shatter into this respite of sweet nuttiness… bliss.
For the record, I am quite capable of getting more than pastries at the forno. In fact, I discovered something fun a few months ago—a kind of sandwich filled with mortadella or salami. I asked for it by saying, “panini” but the baker told me it’s actually called scrocchiarella. I repeated the word, or at least I tried. She said it again, more slowly. I tried again. Finally she wrote it down and comforted me that it’s really a very hard word. “Croccante” means crunchy, which may or may not have something to do with the name of this sandwich, as the bread is practically air, with a crisp outer layer. So it collapses into the meltingly soft mortadella (my favorite). Siena likes to take one of these with her to her studio for a pick-me-up.
Of course, every time I enter the forno, I pick up a loaf of bread, called a “filetta”. If the forno will be closed for awhile, I’ll instead opt for a “fillone”. Recently when I ordered my filetta, the lady asked if I wanted it normale. I stopped. Is there an option beyond “normal”? Turns out, si! You can choose one that is softer (which she said is favored by old people, and, we discovered, it’s a much better vehicle for Nutella) or tougher, which is better for people with less money as it lasts longer. She shrugged, suggesting “you do you.”
Now, as this is Umbria, the standard bread is not salted. I once bemoaned this fact, and it’s true that part of my love affair with Puglia and Matera were the gloriously tender and flavorful loaves of bread. But I’ve made my peace with Umbrian (and Tuscan, when it comes to that) unsalted bread. It is very true that for Umbrian cooking, it is sublime. Toast some up—on the grill if possible, but even in the toaster—spread some new oil on there and a sprinkle of salt, and wow. The crisp outside gives way to the soft inside in a way that is reminiscent of a savory donut.
So, yes, it’s true that if you want bread and butter like you have at home, Umbrian bread will disappoint, especially coupled with the lack of salted butter. But when in Umbria… eat like an Umbrian. “Faccia una scarpetta”, turn that piece of bread into the shape of a shoe to sop up the remnants of the sauce on your plate. You’ll be glad of the unsalted-ness then, as you want a vehicle, not a showstopper.
Panzanella is another great use of Umbrian bread, particularly a loaf that’s past it’s prime. I have a recipe here on the website for panzanella, but lately I just wing it. I leave minced red onions in salt to macerate while I chop bread and tomatoes. Then I throw everything together with several healthy slugs of good Umbrian olive oil (plus a few more for good measure) and a a fair drizzle of red or white wine vinegar, whatever I have on hand. Throw in some salt, toss about, correct for seasonings, and voila! Panzanella. I’ve never made it as well as I do here, and I wonder if it’s the bread. Sometimes I throw some celery in it. Sometimes a minced anchovy. Certainly in the summer I add basil and parsley. It keeps in the refrigerator so well, it’s easy to take it out, spoon onto arugula, top it with a can of tuna for an instant and mouthwatering dinner.
If you need salt in your bread, there are some varieties at the forno. I pick up rolls there whenever I find out that our salumi guy is making porchetta. Just this week I decided to try the baguette, which was a fun change. The forno also makes what’s called a “nerone”, a dark bread with grains on the outside. It’s moist, slightly sweet, and really flavorful. Wonderful with butter and some orange jam from our farm share.
Are you yet surprised at what one tiny forno can produce? Well then hold onto your hats, because I’m about to blow your mind. This unassuming little shop makes the best, the absolute best (and if you know me, you know I never use that word), panettone and pandoro I’ve ever ever had.
In case you aren’t well versed in Italian holiday breads, let me delightedly take a beat to fill you in. Panettone is a sweetened bread popular all over Italy for Christmas. It’s the result of a long fermentation, similar to sourdough, which makes it particularly fluffy. It is often enriched with candied orange and raisins, though there are other variations from chocolate chips to glazed chestnuts to figs. The one I like to order in the States because it has the soft stretchiness and full flavor I’m used to in Italy comes from Williams-Sonoma and it costs about 50$ (though it does come in a festive red tin, hence the sight of our Charlottesville shelves lined with red tins where we store all manner of sundry items).
The one we get from our forno has no tin, but it costs around €10,00 and is sublime. It has a reputation now and people come from miles around to pick up one of the characteristic round loaves.
Given how wonderful the panettone is, when I saw the forno had a pandoro on the shelf, I asked for it without hesitation. Pandoro and Panettone are often lumped together as Italian holiday sweet breads, but they are really quite different. Where panettone has that stretchy-yeasty thing going, pandoro is more like a cake and it has no add-ins. It hails from the Veneto, which is why I made sure to buy one in Venice and that’s what I ate for breakfast on my birthday (you can read more about that trip to Venice and how it completely change how I think about La Serenissima). Pandoro is baked in a festive star tin, and you cut it horizontally so each piece keeps the shape.
Both panettone and pandoro boast a unique flavor, which I didn’t really register until I was in Charlottesville and made panettone mini-muffins for a “Feast of Several Fishes” party I hosted. These muffins are obscenely good and part of the credit goes to Fiori di Sicilia, the flavoring you can buy from King Arthur flour to add a flavor of panettone and pandoro to your baked goods. Twist off that cap and inhale and you’ll think you fell backward into a puffy bed of Italian Christmas dreams. I love Fiori di Sicilia so much I LITERALLY USE IT AS PERFUME.
Now, as I’ve discovered from combing Italian recipe websites, I’m pretty sure King Arthur flour made up Fiori di Sicilia to replicate the idiosyncratic flavor of Italian Christmas breads. Actual Italian recipes use some combination of oranges, lemons, almond paste, vanilla, honey, and rum or marsala. In fact, pandoro trends to simple vanilla and lemon. But you can’t put any of those behind your ears and swan out into the middle of a party feeling as popular and decadent as a pandoro, so I’d still check out that Fiori di Sicilia, especially if you want to make the panettone muffins which are a lot less labor intensive than an actual panettone (even if you crystallize your own orange peel to add in with tiny bits of chopped chocolate) and super charming topped with Swedish pearl sugar. A bottle of Fiori di Sicilia is just 10$ USD, totally worth it for the kind of swooning that’s in your future.
Now, to get back the star of our show, the forno, it’s pandoro blew the one I got in Venice right out of the lagoon water. My local pandoro was soft and delicate and, well, triumphant.
I practically ran to the forno and told the lady that the panettone and pandoro from this shop were the best in the world. She clasped her hands together and nodded saying, “Grazie, grazie!”
Now, I keep saying the word “lady”. I’m going to have to learn their names before I write my next book, but really I should know them anyway.
Since I love them.
For the moment, though, they are just “older lady” and “younger lady” and I’m sure I’m meant to be best friends with them both. Unlike the proper image of a bakery, these ladies dress in workaday, casual clothes. Plus, masks of course.
The other concession to the pandemic besides the masks and the “one person at a time” rule is the plexiglass that sits on the display case and divides customer from the register. A hole is cut out of the plexiglass for that ubiquitous Italian payment plate, where you put your money and the lady leaves your change and receipt. Other than those nods to the pandemic, the bakery is largely unchanged. In fact, I wonder if Spellani can still drop off a chicken to roast and then pick it up roasted for lunch, like Angelo tells me they used to.
Back to the ladies, no matter how many people are waiting in the street, they answer my questions with all patience and cheer. When I was stumped on the difference between zeppole and frittelle (often used interchangeably on the internet) younger lady appeared beside older lady (both ladies at once!) to tell me that what I got a few days before were fritelle which are made with bread dough and apples and rolled in sugar. These zeppole are made with donut dough and are filled with cream.
Tell me more.
Because while we’ve sadly said goodbye to panettone and pandoro since the Epiphany, now the forno’s shelves are lined with treats for carnevale. And I need a lot of help to parse these out. Along with the frittelle and zeppole, there are shortbread cookies decorated like carnevale masks as well as chiacchiere, which are flat sheets of dough and there are frappe, which have a bit of a twist to them. I’m pretty sure I spied something like a chocolate donut the other day, but it was through the window, and it might have just been the chocolate chip yogurt bread.
They’ll end, these carnevale sweets, just like the wine must bread of grape season ended with frosty mornings and Christmas breads faded away with the lights strung all over Spello. But then comes colomba for Easter— much like a panettone, but shaped like a dove, and topped with a crackling sugar and almond crust.
Meanwhile, every once in awhile something appears I’ve yet to try. Last week it was pine nut tarts. Tomorrow…who knows? I’ll keep you posted.
I love the forno so much, I make up excuses to do a bakery dash. I find it gets me looking for my shoes in the morning, rather than staying huddled under my blankets while glaring at the oppressive fog.
And it’s good to have that reason to get out, because once I’m in it, the fog, well, it’s quite charming, really. Much better to be walking through it, admiring each arch and tower, than sleepily scrolling on my phone.
Since a filetta costs just €1,50 and each pastry about the same, the trip is well worth the cost of admission.
The promise of that scent of baking bread pulls me sweetly, like a siren’s song, through days both rainy and fine. Not only for that expertly worked gluten, but for the camaraderie, the cheer, I find every time I push through that tricky door or part that bead curtain. At the bakery, I’m treated like any other Spellani. I get the same greetings and the same warnings, “we’re closed Monday, so do you sant a fillone?” and the same calls of seasonal cheer.
We’re all worthy of bread.
It’s such a place of comfort, I find myself relaxed enough to understand every single word spoken (no place else does this happen) and I can push myself to try new questions, new phrasing. Today I took the bold step of asking when they’d have fritelle again. Older lady told me tomorrow they’d be frying and then added that they’d also have something new, ficcanasi, which she says is an Umbrian kind of round frappe, filled with orange.
Ci vediamo domani, I told her.
I’ll see you tomorrow.
What with all my bakery runs, we do wind up with a lot of stale bread. Besides panzanella and bread pudding, what are you ideas for what to do with leftover bread? Do you have a favorite bakery? Do you love it for what you can buy, or for how you feel when you’re there?
Post-script: As promised, I got up bright and early this morning and raced to the forno, only to discover they weren’t frying up the ficcanasi until 11. Younger lady asked how many I wanted and said she’d put them aside so I could come whenever. When she saw me enter at noon, she dashed to the bakery floor and came back with my tray of sweets, holding one up for me to admire. She said they are typical of carnevale in Spello, and really tasty with the little bit of bitter from the orange and lemon peel. My eye caught on another new treat, i asked about the baked goods that resembled sugared tortillas. She said they’re called cresciolette and they’re made with leftover bread dough, rolled out and fried. She confessed to her joy when she smells them as she’s waking up. We laughed and emboldened, I confessed that I didn’t know her name. She told me, just as older lady stepped in from the bakery floor so now I know both of their names! I’m looking forward to greeting them by name as I ask yet more questions about the novel treats awaiting my admiration.
