Maria Grammatico

Maria Grammatico was born in Trapani in 1940, in the years of war and hunger. At eleven, after her father died, she was sent to the convent of San Carlo in Erice: a cloistered life of hard work, where she learned from the nuns the whole art of convent pastry-making.

After leaving the convent, on 1 June 1964 she opened a small shop in Erice with just three kilos of almonds, helped by her mother and her brothers and sisters. Since then her name has been one with Erice's pastry: genovesi, marzipan fruit, almond sweets, cannoli and cassate.

Her story is told in the book "Bitter Almonds", written with Mary Taylor Simeti and first published in the United States in 1994: the convent years and the recipes. At her pastry shop in Erice there are still tastings and Sicilian cooking classes, and the sweets are shipped across Italy and abroad.