Italian desserts and criminal minds

"Leave the gun. Take the cannoli."

This is from Peter Clemenza in The Godfather, of course. I have seen the movie millions of times, but I never had once in my life cannoli. I did try to find them, sadly when they were on the dessert menu of Pizza Express they had been sold out. This is the kind of totally decadent dessert I usually crave for. And it is associated with one of my favourite movies, so just for this I want to try it.

I have been blogging recently about tiramisù and I guess Italian desserts are on my mind, but also the association we make with sugar and sugaree stuff and criminality. In The Godfather trilogy, it is obvious: when smeone eats or buys an orange, murder is being planned or about to be committed. Cannoli are associated with not one, but two murders in the saga: Paulie Gatto's and Don Altobello's, who gets poisoned by them. In another classic, Amadeus, Salieri, a jealious Italian composer who sends Mozart to his death even though he believes he is the Son of God (adding blasphemy and deicide to murder), is also depicted as having a sweet tooth, and a patriotic one at that, being particularly fond and proud of the speicalties of his homeland.

I think there is a reason for this association. There are two kinds of villains which I find particularly interesting: the puritan and the gluttonous. The puritan is dehumanised and his ethics close to fanaticism and the gluttonous displays appetites that are being the realm of food. They have the destructive hunger of ogres. I will blog a bit more about crime fiction in the next few days. Until then, I leave you with the classic murder scene and the immortal line.