Maria Grammatico
Maria Grammatico is an Italian pastry chef and entrepreneur based in Erice, Sicily. She is best known for preserving the traditional convent pastries of western Sicily and for her memoir–cookbook Bitter Almonds, co-written with food historian Mary Taylor Simeti.
Grammatico was born in Erice, a hill town in western Sicily. In 1952, as a child she was placed in the San Carlo monastery, where nuns maintained centuries-old pastry traditions. There, she learned the labour-intensive craft of making pasta reale di Erice, a marzipan-like confection used in almond-based sweets such as bocconcini, sospiri, and cuscinetti.
Career
In 1964, Grammatico left the monastery and opened a small pastry shop in Erice. It became a local landmark, drawing both Sicilian and international visitors. Over the decades she has been credited with keeping convent-style pastry alive outside monastic settings, while also training younger bakers.Her work has been featured in international media, including the Los Angeles Times and U.S. public radio’s The Splendid Table, which called her “the Pastry Queen of Sicily”.
In addition to her pasticceria, Grammatico founded the Scuola di Arte Culinaria, a cooking school in Erice where she teaches traditional Sicilian pastry-making and continues the convent legacy for international students.
Works
- Bitter Almonds: Recollections and Recipes from a Sicilian Girlhood, with Mary Taylor Simeti.. Reviewed in Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews.