A thick layer of soft, well-risen bread dough, topped with tomato, stewed onion, melted anchovies, oregano and caciocavallo palermitano, the cheese made from cinisara cattle: it is baked in large rectangular trays and sold in squares, hot, from street stalls. It is one of the symbols of Palermo's street food, alongside panelle and pane e panelle.
The name comes from the Latin spongia and the Greek spòngos, «sponge», for the soft, hole-filled texture of the dough; some scholars also hear an echo of the Arabic isfanğ, the honey-sweetened fritter widespread in Sicily in the Islamic period. According to tradition, sfincione was born in the seventeenth century among the nuns of the San Vito monastery, who made it for feast days as an alternative to everyday bread.
It is a Traditional Agri-food Product of Sicily, in the baked-goods category. Some food historians consider it a distant ancestor of certain American tray pizzas, from Detroit-style to Philadelphia tomato pie.
