For many years, I sought further information about a street food I knew as cinque cinque only available near – near, but not under – the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Pisa, Italy. Cinque cinque is basically fried bread made from chickpea flour, but it’s a little more complicated than that. When I asked Italian friends – nay, when I asked Pisan friends! – about the recipe for cinque cinque, they would plead ignorance, or mention that they thought cinque cinque was called “cinque cinque” because it has only five ingredients (cinque is Italian for “five”), but, just like Adriana in the Sopranos or Frankie Pentangeli in The Godfather II (1974), no one was willing to part with any worthwhile information. Add to this the problem with Googling “cinque cinque” (a foreign word for an integer repeated twice – I don’t think the ubiquitous search engine is really equipped to know what the fuck I’m talking about, even if it’s stock is trading at like 200 or whatever), and this delicious, salty treat remained hidden for years.

Until today.

I’ve found information about cinque cinque, also known by the more easily Googleable “torta de ceci,” here and here, including a recipe from veganeatsandtreats.blogspot.com. What do you know – turns out there are five ingredients after all.