Armchair travelling - don't you just love it? All the pleasure and none of the pain - such a joy in the winter months. Old friends are always available for a re-visit - and yes, I do keep a commonplace book typed up on my laptop to go with my hundreds of sketchbooks - always have!
In The Heart of Sicily (1993), Marchesa Anna Tasca Lanza, founding mother of a world-renowned cookery school on the family estate that's now run by her equally-talented daughter Fabrizia, puts her finger on the pulse: “We Sicilians share a certain philosophy of cooking. We don’t make a dish from a recipe; rather we create it from what we have on hand, what is growing on the land at the moment. That way we never cook out of season. We use what is ripe, and we don’t keepit for too long. We are not rigid about ingredients - if there’s basil, we use parsley. We never plan a meal long in advance, unless we have guests. We prefer to cook food and eat it at once, rather than wrap it up and store in the refrigerator for later. Food put on the table straight from the stove tastes so much better than food that is refrigerated and then reheated."
Writing in Sicily: The Garden of the Mediterranean in 1938, just before the outbreak of WW2, Englishman Francis Guercio (Palermito by right of descent and prolonged residence) has firm views on what it means to be Sicilian at table: ‘Olive oil is the only fat in the regular diet...Sicilians dislike the fat of meat and their butchers are expected to supply the required weight without it. Meat, however, is eaten in comparatively small quantities, often not more than once a week, on Sundays and on other feast days....generally beef, veal, lamb or kid...The foundations of the Sicilian diet are bread, macaroni, olive oil, green vegetables, fruit and wine. Real Sicilian bread is made in pistuluni or in pagnotti – longitudinal or in round loaves...and it is distinctly heavier, harder and saltier in taste. Macaroni...is always the first dish of the principal meal of the day. The favourite way of cooking it is in plain boiling water...served with tomato sauce and grated cheese, when it is the foundation of a minestra or minestrone (to use a north Italian word), olive oil is added to flavour and enrich it."
For the last word look no further than Storia dei Musulmani di Sicilia published in 1854 (so poignant right now) by Sicilian patriot Michele Amari (orientalist, aristocrat, historian, politician, architect with Garibaldi of Italy's Unification - 'nuff said): "Only very recently have Sicilian shops begun to provide for the unattended lady shopper who wants her purchases sent home....[meanwhile] the street vendor is at work from the earliest hours of the morning...in winter, arancini, rissoles of stewed meat and rice, stigghiuole, interiors of kid wound round fennel-leaves, panelli, flaps of chick-pea flour fried in oil, roasted chestnuts....[in the summer months] delicious quagglhie, or fried aubergines, are...hawked around on magnificent brass salvers with cuspidal covers which the vendor carries on top of his head....Next come the milkmen, trading from house to house with their cows or goats. Milking is done in front of the customer....Next come the fruit and vegetable sellers, calling their wares as they walk alongside their carts drawn by donkeys, some no bigger than a large dog...Trade ceases at midday and resumes in the evening with the street sellers and booth-men offering toasted almonds, melon seeds, carob beans, chestnuts, ices and dozens of other trifling dainties....the trade is remarkably profitable: piles of silver coins are not unknown.
That's it for now, folks! My beloved paid subscribers will shortly be in receipt of a seasonal recipe or two (cassata, anyone? Or maybe macaroni alla sarde). Which is not to say that I don't value all my free subscribers, but it's great to get paid!
p.s: Apologies for skipping last week's post - I just thought that maybe everyone deserved a rest what with Thanksgiving and all, including me.
A wonderful read as ever
I can feel the sun on my back. Thanks for this!