Panettone is Italy’s iconic fluffy traditional Christmas cake. It’s known worldwide for being sweet and tasty, made with raisins and candied fruit. Its recipe is sacred and regarded as untouchable. Nobody knows who first invented it, yet all Italians adore it.
But in recent years Panettone has seen many twists. Pastry chefs have added off-the-wall experimental ingredients such as aubergines, anchovies, olives, chilli peppers and onions.
I tend to stick to tradition and don’t particularly like it when original recipes are tainted by creative whim. However, the latest invention is totally flabbergasting. This year, on Christmas Eve, many Italians will indulge in a Panettone that’s utterly shocking.
Davide Muro, a creative pastry maker in Pinerolo, a town in Piedmont known for its gourmet food, has taken it one step beyond. He has come up with a Panettone made with cricket flour. That is, tiny bits of crunched-up, dried crickets.
Quite fittingly, he has called it Pancrícrí to mimic the sound of the insect.
When I first heard about it I happened to be visiting Piedmont – so naturally I headed straight to Muro’s pastry shop for a taste of this weird new thing and when I got there, the queue was out of the door.
It took for ever to get a seat. I waited and waited – and then gave up. Fortunately, my aunt, who lives there, had bought Pancrícrí, so I went over to her place for dinner.
As the moment drew nearer, the thought of eating Christmas cake with crickets began to disgust me. Then my aunt, who lives in a farmhouse near Pinerolo, loves to try new foods, and when she produced the Pancrícrí, it kind of looked just like a normal Panettone. But I knew it wasn’t.
The cricket flour is mixed with white flour. The dough is softened by extra virgin olive oil and enriched with chocolate chips that also contain caramelised crickets.
I cut myself a small slice just in case I could not finish it, and tried to remember that, even though Italians generally don’t eat insects, millions of people round the world do, and then I just gave in and bit into it.
I was expecting something very strong and crickety. Surprisingly it had quite a delicate, weird taste and I couldn’t quite figure out whether I liked it or not.
The flavour is a bit like a chocolate-covered wafer. Also like a wafer there’s a crunch when you bite into it, which is unlike a regular Panettone.
Muro, the chef who makes these things, is now having to deal with people calling him from all over Italy. Dozens of sweet-toothed gourmands are eager to buy his alternative recipe and they don’t want to miss out on the latest Christmas thing.
“This is simply divine. It’s not as sweet as the normal Panettone and it tastes like a sweet-sour pizza kind of cake,” my cousin Silvio said. He was on his fourth slice and kept looking at the cake as if it were some sort of miracle.
My other cousin, his brother Paolo, was less enthusiastic. “I don’t understand why chefs keep messing with tradition. It’s an attack on our culinary traditions. I prefer to taste the usual crunchy sugar coating rather than dead crickets.”
He took a small bite and spat it out on the plate straightaway.
As for me – I didn’t particularly like it. Still, I admired the innovative push behind Pancrícrí. Muro, its creator, has come up with something that’s pretty popular, and also that’s lactose free. And it’s really caught the imagination. Everyone is talking about Pancrícrí, even down in Sicily.
Next Christmas? I predict Panettone with ants – or possibly bees.
Silvia Marchetti is a freelance reporter based in Rome
