A bite of Sicily

I believe that without having gastronomic experience you cannot fully explore a country. When I travel I usually try the local cuisine, avoiding touristy places. On food markets I can not only eat food specialities but I can look into the everyday life of people living there.

Sicily seemed to be the perfect spot in this regard, and I even got an expert tour guide who accompanied me on one of my city walk.

Traveling in Italy is always a culinary journey in itself as any part of the country offers countless delicacies. Sicily is not different: you are never hungry unless you forget about their siesta (riposo). Most restaurants close for this time and they only open again in the evening at dinner time, around 7pm. If you do not get lunch in time you will hardly be able to eat a proper meal in the afternoon.

Sicilian food market: Mediterranean colorfulness

Sicilians love their food. If they do not eat it they talk about it: what they had earlier what they would have later and when they should start cooking that day. Whenever I arrived at a hotel I was instantly directed to the best restaurants in town. Local attractions were mentioned only after this.

Sicily’s gastronomy is very exciting. It has been influenced by the Greek, Roman, Arabic, French, North-African and Spanish cuisine. For example olives and honey came from Greek culture, pasta originates from the Roman Empire, almond and spices were brought from the Arabic world and chocolate arrived from the Aztec culture through the Spanish.

You cannot miss out early morning food markets in larger cities especially Palermo, Catania and Siracusa. Sellers shout loudly to convince customers to buy their fresh products. The crowd is huge; it is truly an Italian experience.

They offer a respectable selection of fruits and vegetables. However, the most exciting part for me was the fish market. The most popular among them was the swordfish (spada) which has a sword shaped nose – hence the name. There were enormous specimens on the stands. You can wonder around but it is well worth shopping too. You should buy different kinds of cheese, mortadella and olives and you can have a picnic somewhere instead of sitting in a restaurant.

Organized food tour in Palermo

The most exciting and biggest food markets are located in Palermo. While searching Tripadvisor I found a great attraction: Streaty Tours organizes guided food tours in the city. I signed up for one of these tours instantly. I was incredibly lucky as I was the only client that day and I had my own guide called Marco. (They do small groups anyway; they could not handle more than ten people in the chaotic food market crowd.)

Our first thing to taste was a real delicacy. Frittola is made from less valuable parts of veal baked in fat. It is quite tasty accompanied with lemon juice and pepper. We also tried the local pizza called sfincione and the popular street food a pane ca meusa (lung with bread).

We had deep fried bites as panelle and cazzilli. Panelle is made from chickpea flour and it is seasoned with parsley. Cazzilli includes potato with mint and some parsley too. The most common and widely known street food is arancine which is a rice ball and has different fillings. The traditional one is made from veal, peas, carrots, onion and saffron but we tried it with spinach and cheese too. Marco mentioned that those ones with no traditional ingredients should not be named arancine. The correct term for those is supli.

Eating was not the only thing we did during these four hours. Marco was also telling me about Palermo’s history, saints and the everyday life in the city. We visited churches and checked out the courtyards of old houses. We literally walked through half the city. I got a really good idea which places were worth to return to. It was also perfect for having a taste of all the delicacies without having my stomach too full.

After visiting the huge markets in Palermo, I wanted to see the smaller ones in Catania. Surprisingly it also had a lot of different delicacies to offer: this was the first place I saw char-grilled artichoke filled with garlic and parsley. I tried it straight away. It was a real challenge to eat it as only the lower leafs were soft and by the time I reached them while chewing I got very messy everywhere on my face.  Luckily, I was given a big pile of napkins so I only had a few oily patches on me.

Sicilian delicacies all day long

The day starts oddly for a tourist when it comes to food as the usual Sicilian breakfast includes sweet pastries (e.g. chocolate croissant) or cakes. They offer a bit wider range of food on the buffet tables in fancier hotels but sweets dominate in these places too.

The most popular and widely known cake is the cannoli which is sweet ricotta wrapped in crunchy pastry.

They also have a huge offer of almond and pistachio cookies. The traditional cassata is a kind of sponge cake filled with ricotta and topped with marzipan and candied fruit. My favorite breakfast was brioche filled with pistachio ice cream – refreshing and filling at the same time.

During a traditional Sicilian dining the cold starter is followed by pasta and then comes the main course which is made of fish or meat. The last course is of course dessert. I only attempted to finish all these courses once but I was full after having the pasta. I heroically finished the main course but I could not eat any of the desserts. And I am a classic big eater.

I was amazed watching other people around me having all four courses without any difficulty. In spite of this I could hardly see any obese men or women. They use high quality and fresh ingredients so this could be the reason they do not put on any weight. People here do not go to fast food restaurants and I could hardly find any off-season products at the grocery store.

My favorite starter was the eggplant based caponata salad. The best of all main courses I had was the pasta con le sarde made with sardine and a lot of fennel. I also loved pasta flavored and colored with black squid ink. A typical dish called pasta alla norma is also popular. The slow-cooked sauce is made of eggplant, tomato, oregano and shaved pecorino. I was not fond of their pasta served with fava beans and ricotta.

It is very hard to find fresh sea fish at a reasonable prize in Hungary so during my stay I usually ordered grilled swordfish, squid or shrimp as a main course. There are quite a lot of flavors of ice cream and granita is very popular in summer however they were not in season during my stay.

Producing chocolate with ancient methods

Modica is Sicily’s chocolate headquarter. It is worth visiting the oldest factory on the island called Bonajuto Dolceria even for those who are not fond of chocolate. It was fascinating to hear the history of the company, to go behind the scenes of chocolate production, and of course to taste all the samples they displayed. Francesco Bonajuto opened his small sweet shop in the tiny, beautiful baroque town in 1880. He made his cakes with attention and care and became more and more popular. He would be delighted to see that after six generation his shop can still be found at the same place. The delicious cakes and sweets are only made with hand-crafted technology.

Chocolate was brought to Sicily by the Spanish when they invaded the island. They used the old Aztec method that is why chocolate production has never turned into an industrial process as in other parts of Europe.  The Bonajuto factory has been using the same ingredients and techniques that the Spanish conquerors adopted.

Cocoa mass is kept on 40-45 degree Celsius to preserve its essential aroma. The added sugar therefore does not melt but it stays crystalline. It does not crackle but still has a definite taste. In Modica they use vanilla and cinnamon for flavoring and they do not add other additives, butter or dairy product to the chocolate. The products you find in the shops only contain cocoa, sugar and spices hence they have a good effect on the human health. According to the trends they make variations such as tuna or alga flavor however traditional flavors are still the most attractive of all.

Marsala-the drink not to be missed

The island’s iconic drink is marsala wine. This sweet, strong, fortified vin de liqueur has a very interesting preparation method. The aging barrel they use during production is never empty. During the bottling process there is always a small amount left in the barrels and they get refilled again with the wine they want to age. Marsala’s history goes back to 1770 where it was owned by English merchants. Today the main capacity belongs to the Florio family. Their factory offers daily guided tours including professional tasting. The visitor gets three different types of wine with small bites to obtain information how to pair marsala with food. It is also interesting that Garibaldi was a good friend of the Florio family thus we can also see different armaments displayed in the factory.

Sicily is a great example, how travel and gastronomy go hand in hand: you get to know the cuisine while exploring the island and history also shows itself during a food market tour, in a chocolate factory or during a wine tasting.