" La Pignolata Messinese " was once consumed only during the carnival period, while now always, having risen to the representative and undisputed goodness of the " City of the Strait ".

Originally the pignolata was a dessert prepared with poor ingredients of the peasant tradition such as flour, eggs and lard, assuming the name, which has come down to the present day, because at the end of the preparation it resembled pine cones. This dessert, inherited from the Arabs, was initially made of fried dough and covered with honey. There are many legends that have accompanied the pignolata, one of which tells how it was born in the kitchen of a convent of Messina nuns who prepared piles of fried pine nuts, mixed with honey, to give to the participants during the celebrations.

In 1516 when Charles V of Habsburg and the Iberian nobles immediately appreciated this delicious specialty but, considering it too plebeian a dessert, they asked the pastry chefs of Messina to replace the honey with the lemon and cocoa glaze, an ingredient they had begun to import from America.

Hence the current preparation of the classic Messina dessert

The Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies, recognizing its particularity, has included the dessert in the Sicilian list of PATs , Traditional Italian Agri-Food Products.