It is therefore difficult to find a unique and shared recipe, although the love for this dish is common feeling of all the people of Palermo. which is baked pasta by definition, prepared on Sundays with the family and on all holidays. Anelletti is a pasta shape with a strong territorial identity, used only in Palermo and its province: In the rest of Sicily in similar preparations, pasta shapes as penne or rigatoni are used. Like other Sicilian dishes from ancient history, even baked pasta rings, as we appreciate them today, are the result of that culinary syncretism that characterizes our gastronomic culture. Their roots date back to the Arab domination, when the dry pasta was introduced and used also in the composition of timbales with various ingredients. In fact, the term timbale, although re-introduced in the gastronomic nomenclature through the French form timbale, derives from the Arab and means the mold of hemispherical or slightly conical shape in which the dish was cooked. After more than a thousand years is still u tianu rutunnu (round pan) the most appropriate for the preparation of baked pasta: in Cefalù, for example, the typical baked pasta, called a tianu, has in its name the relation with the clay pot already used in Sicily by the Arabs. Anelletti, whose shape is said to be inspired by the earrings of Arab women of the Middle Ages, owe their fortune to the hole that allows you to retain sauces better. When in the XIV century the boiling of pasta was introduced, the timbale stopped being a cooking technical need becoming a particular type of preparation. The Angevins introduced meat ragù to which over time were added, in addition to the tomato sauce of Spanish age, the peas, which characterize the Sicilian version of this condiment. But it is thanks to the culinary art of the Monsù that the timbales of pasta became central in the tables of the nobles as real masterpieces of taste: rich ingredients, skillfully mixed, were often wrapped by short pastry wraps as in the case of the famous pasticciu di sustanza of The Leopard, or by layers of fried eggplant or zucchini. The current baked pasta of Palermo is the popular reinterpretation of the recipe of the Monsù and it is possible to taste it, as well as at home, in various place such as cafes, chip shops, bakeries, diners, often in single-serve trays.