CUCCIA

Cuccìa is a traditional,  Sicilian dish containing boiled wheat, berries and sugar, which is eaten on December 13, the feast day of Saint Lucy, the patron saint  of Siracusa (Syracuse). The dish is consumed in Sicily and in isolated areas of Southern Italy as well as their communities abroad. It commemorates the relief from a food shortage in Sicily and the unexpected arrival of a cargo of wheat, which tradition says arrived in the port of Palermo on Saint Lucy's Feast in 1646. According to custom, bread should not be eaten on December 13; cuccìa should be the only source of wheat, and the primary source of nourishment for the day.

Cuccìa is prepared differently from family to family and in different regions. Some make cuccìa as soup, others as a pudding. Most traditional preparations add sugar, butter, chocolate and milk Cuccìa may owe its origins to Sicily's Byzantine period (535-965 AD) since a variant, koliva, is prepared in the Balkans. The most likely candidate for its origin may be its most similar counterpart, Kutia (pronounced kùtcha), an identical dish served throughout Ukraina, Russia, and Poland. As in Sicily, this dish is eaten only during the Christmas season, and its basic preparation (boiled wheat and honey instead of sugar) remains strikingly similar.

1.    Cuccia is consumed

a)    Only in Sicily

b)    Only in Syracuse

c)    In Sicily and Sardinia

d)    In Sicily and its communities abroad

2.    Cuccia was created to remember

a)    An earthquake

b)    A seaquake

c)    A food shortage

d)    A water shortage

3.    Cuccia has

a)    Balkan origin

b)    Arabian origin

c)    Norman origin

d)    Spanish origin