“Of course I know it — cassata Siciliana, my mom used to make it,” says Cecelia Maiogan, a Chicago-area resident who grew up in a small town outside of Palermo on the Northern shore of Sicily.

“From the time I was seven or eight, around Easter, she would send me on foot to town to go buy the candied fruit that we used to decorate it with,” Maiogan says, “and as a treat for my errand I got to have a small piece of the fruit. I remember really liking that, the sliver of candied pear I had maybe once a year.”