Cucciá

In Sicily — and among Italian-Americans of Sicilian ancestry — Cucciá is eaten as a dish to commemorate a relief from a food-shortage in Sicily; the appearance of wheat is attributed to Saint Lucy. The basis for the recipe of cucciá are whole kernels of wheat, also called wheat-berries, and they should be from a type of wheat associated with Sicily and/or Italy; in America, this is not too hard to accomplish, just look for wheat termed GRANO at healthfood-stores, or Italian-American stores. As to an exact recipe, cucciá is prepared differently from family to family. Some make cucciá as soup, others as a pudding; and, in Kansas City, Missouri among the Italians (families with Sicilian ancestry) cucciá is prepared as a hot-cereal, but most add sugar, butter and, perhaps, milk. cici beans, known to Americans as garbanzo beans are also associated with the eating of cucciá, as are almonds and ricotta, which ricotta might have been a common ingredient in Kansas City before butter became habit. Nevertheless, bread should not be eaten on December 13th; the notion is that cucciá should be the only source of wheat, and the primary source of nourishment for the day. Most importantly, the kernels of wheat must be soaked the night before Saint Lucy's Day, and boiled the next day, and resting into a simmer, over the course of 3–4 hours! It takes the full 3–4 hours to fully soften the wheat-berries to the point of being tasty. The term cucciá is distinctly a word from the Sicilian language and it is said to have beginnings in Arabic from something that was used to carry grain, and *not* from words that happen to sound like it in the Italian language.