Bocconotto di Mormanno (jam-filled pastry)

History and origin

The bocconotto di Mormanno is a small pastry tied to a single town, Mormanno, in the province of Cosenza. In dialect it is called bucchinotto.

The Calabria Region has listed it among its traditional agri-food products, a status reserved for methods practised consistently and according to traditional rules for at least twenty-five years. Among the evidence of this continuity, the regional sheet cites a local document: the July 1955 issue of the magazine «Mormanno», which shows that it was part of town life by the middle of the twentieth century.

Today the bocconotto appears in the national list of traditional agri-food products kept by the Ministry of Agriculture, in the category of fresh pasta and bakery, biscuit, pastry and confectionery products.

Sources: Regione Calabria — Scheda identificativa PAT: Bocconotto di Mormanno · Masaf — Elenco nazionale dei prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali, XXVI revisione (2026)

Area and method of production

The production area indicated by the Calabria Region is the municipality of Mormanno alone. The method is that of a pastry shop: shortcrust pastry is prepared, today in an electric mixer, and oval metal moulds give the sweet its typical shape.

Each mould is lined with pastry and filled with jam using a spoon, then baked. The work takes place in rooms equipped for pastry making, and among the tools the sheet lists the electric oven, single-portion bags, a heat-sealing machine and pastry containers.

Sources: Regione Calabria — Scheda identificativa PAT: Bocconotto di Mormanno

How to recognise it

The Calabria Region's official description is essential: the bocconotto is a small oval sweet, made of a shortcrust pastry base and a jam filling. Its oval shape comes from the metal moulds in which it bakes, filled by the spoonful before going into the oven.

In the classification of traditional products it belongs to pastry, alongside biscuits and baked sweets. It is often packed individually, in single-portion bags closed with a heat sealer, or in pastry containers.

To recognise it, look for this combination: the oval shape, the shortcrust, the jam inside and the name of the town that makes it, Mormanno.

Sources: Regione Calabria — Scheda identificativa PAT: Bocconotto di Mormanno

Where to taste it

The bocconotto is to be found in Mormanno, the only municipality in the production area indicated by the Region. The town has a compact historic centre around Piazza Umberto I, home to the church of Santa Maria del Colle, at the foot of the hill where the oldest part of town stands: three buildings have succeeded one another on the site, the oldest perhaps from the fourteenth century, and traces of the first two can be seen in the crypts.

From every corner of town you can see the Votive Lighthouse, at Torretta: a rare building for a mountain town, erected in honour of the Calabrian soldiers who fell in the Great War, which holds relics and memorabilia.

A walk between the square, the church and the lighthouse is the most natural way to stop in town and taste the bucchinotto where it is made.

Sources: Regione Calabria — Scheda identificativa PAT: Bocconotto di Mormanno · Comune di Mormanno — Chiesa di Santa Maria del Colle · Comune di Mormanno — Faro Votivo

Protection

• Traditional agri-food product (PAT) — Calabria, n. 143, 26th revision (Masaf — Elenco nazionale dei prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali, XXVI revisione (2026) · Regione Calabria — Scheda identificativa PAT: Bocconotto di Mormanno)

When

• The sources consulted give no months.

Where

Calabria

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