Walk into a Sicilian bar on a July morning, and you will find people having, for breakfast, what the rest of Italy might file under dessert: a tall glass of granitaand a soft, round brioche finished with a little knot of dough on top. This isgranita e brioche, the island’s summer breakfast; and to a Sicilian, it is the most sensible thing in the world, the coolest possible way to meet a morning that is going to turn ferocious by ten.
There is a right way to go about it, and everyone knows it: you take the brioche, or brioscia, in dialect, twist off that golden topknot first, the tuppo, and dip it into the ice. Then you carry on, soft warm bread and cold granita in turn. Eat the granita on its own, and you have a treat; eat it like this, and you have a Sicilian morning.
