Coccoli has more than one meaning


In Italian the word coccoli means cuddles.

Our favorite bakery in Florence sells coccoli. We often enjoy coccoli from our favorite bakery.

We arrived in Florence Friday afternoon, bone-tired after the long trip. Saturday morning we gathered ourselves for the necessary shopping, the things we needed for our apartment. Our first stop was at our favorite bakery. After excited hugs and greetings, I watched as the coccoli came out of the oven and as our friend brushed the little rounds of freshly baked bread with olive oil and sprinkled the coccoli with coarse salt. Then we were handed a bag of fresh coccoli.

What could be better? Simple dough, cooked to a small half-sphere about three inches in diameter, dressed with a fresh olive oil and a little coarse salt. No room-temperature potato chip ever tasted as good.

Our baker friends have tempted us before with this simple goodie. It’s so Florentine, not sweet, simple in its ingredients yet, when fresh, impossible not to enjoy and admire.

Midday Saturday we stopped for a quick lunch at a small restaurant that is located in the market where we often shop for the essentials (e.g., prosciutto, parmigiano reggiano, baccelli and pecorino, and so forth.) We meant to eat only a little and then take a nap at our apartment. We were distracted, however, by signs that indicated a special dish of the day, coccoli stuffed with stracchino and draped with prosciutto. Stracchino is similar to what we call cream cheese but stracchino has a fresh dairy taste that is a little bitter but pleasantly so.
Un coccolo

We ordered a plate with five of the special coccoli. We liked the first two coccoli so well that we hardly spoke to each other. We thought that we should memorialize this little marvel with a couple of photos, the first of one coccolo with the stracchino squished out and the second of two coccoli that we had not yet gotten to. This has been described as street food but you’d need a napkin to deal with the delicious combination of runny cheese, tasty prosciutto, and freshly baked bread.

Due coccoli di più
We thought that we had discovered something but the server said that the combination was traditional. A search of the internet for “coccoli” showed that our server was correct, The first hit that we saw was a recipe for a fried version. All hits were in Italian, and most of them suggested serving the coccoli with stracchino and prosciutto. 

We have so much to learn.

We think, however, the baked version painted with some good olive oil and sprinkled with coarse salt is terrific.

From now on we’re going to feel cuddled whenever we have coccoli.

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