I was a bit perplexed when I read in a 1905 book that the Valverde nuns were famous in Palermo not only for cassata, but also for another dessert: torta di giri (chard pie).

Yesterday, I discovered on the web that in Lucca they eat torta con le bietole (chard pie), which is not really a savoury pie, but a product with a flavour that tends towards sweet.

It is also called torta con i becchi (cake with beaks), due to the decoration with the ‘laces’ of the short pastry, and is the typical cake of 27 April, for the feast of Santa Zita, patron saint of the Tuscan city.

The church and monastery of Valverde stood in Palermo right next to the Church and the adjoining Dominican monastery of Santa Zita.  The church of Santa Zita was founded by the Lucchese Michele Trentino as both a place of worship and a meeting place for the Lucchese community in Palermo in the early 14th century. Later, the church of Santa Zita was granted by the Viceroy, through the intercession of his wife Beatrice Speciale, to the Dominicans who had left the nearby convent of San Domenico.

The Lucchese community, like that of Pisa, Genoa and Catalonia, was very active in the Loggia district. Cultural exchanges between merchants, traders and bankers passed through the Saints and also involved the table: from Santa Zita in Sicily to Santa Rosalia in Liguria, from the torta con i giri or con i becchi to buccellati, from panelle in Palermo to panissa in Genoa….