What We’re Into Right Now

Over here at Robust Flavor, we’re just plain crazy about Sicilian puppets. We have over six thousand in our collection! We have had to get a new building just to accommodate all of them. Puppets were important to Sicilians because the puppeteers could make political commentary without fear of persecution and also because they memorialize the struggles of Christianity driving out the Arab invaders in the 11th century. Puppet theatre reached the height of its popularity in Sicily during the middle of the nineteenth century. An interest in puppet theatre faded with emergence of modern developments in the early decades of the twentieth century.

Things like books of fairy tales (and increasing literacy that permitted parents to read the books to their children), film and animation. Conveniently for the new Italian state (the Kingdom of Italy) established in 1860, the traveling puppet shows, presented in the Sicilian language, began to disappear during a time when many of the themes they espoused, particularly the glory of the sovereign Kingdom of Sicily, were officially discouraged in favor of “national unity,” the Italian language and then Fascism. Out of our entire collection we have three favorite puppets: Pietro, Luca and Giuseppe.