Sicilian Cuisine

In spite of the fact that Sicily and Italy are closely connected (as Sicily is a part of Italy), their cuisines are completely different. Orange and olive trees, grapevines and artichokes became the symbols of Sicily. The local cuisine combines culinary traditions of different nations: vine and pancakes came from Greece, sweet pepper — from Spain, spices and rise — from the Arabs.

Meat a-la Sicily

By no means, Sicilian meat dishes are worth trying. First we should mention here the famous “falsomagro” — a meat loaf stuffed with boiled eggs, ham, chopped meat and cheese “cachcaval”, and sausages made of rabbit meat. Though nowadays meat became more available, many families prefer to use intestines and sub products for cooking different meat dishes. The most popular folk meat dish in Sicily is maritata. It represents a flat cake with pieces of spleen, covered with cheese and curds. Such dishes as wether on spit, coated with honey and stewed in red wine, or sausages, roasted over live coals and snails with olive oil are distinguished from the other ones due to their original piquant flavor. Virtually all over the island Sicilians eat shashlik made of mutton from necessarily castrated ram.

Fish

Sicily is washed by three seas — the Ionian Sea, the Tyrrhenian Sea and the Mediterranean Sea — that’s why it is quite natural that Sicilians invented thousands of different methods of cooking fish. They eat spiny lobsters, crawfish, echini, to say nothing about variegated fish dishes — scoppularikki (roasted tiny cuttle-fish), stummi abbuttunati (stuffed scomber), and stoccu a missunizi (dried cod with vegetables). This entire fish splendor is seasoned with different dressings, for example, with salmorilio, made of olive oil, lemon, salt, pepper, garlic and parsley.

Sicilian Bread

Besides common bread, Sicilians bake extraordinarily complicated and variegated dishes from special flour. They are unusually tasty and fragrant, which can be explained by the addition of all possible spices and herbs. Sometimes instead of baking bread they just fry it ii boiling oil. Then they form loaves of bread according to their objectives, namely the occasion or holiday they are destined for.

Anyway, bread is the basis of Sicilian cuisine, dinner table without bread will never be considered rich.

Sicilian Sweets

The most extraordinary Sicilian sweet dish is jam, made of green vegetable marrows. Also we should mention here almonds and pistachios, extinguished with honey. The national dessert is cannoli — sweet rolls of paste, stuffed with curds or cream. Sometimes they add chocolate, sugar and candied fruit. Some time ago cannoli were rather large in size, because the paste was wound round bamboo trunks.

The top of Sicilian confectionary art is cassata, which represents something like a cake. Biscuit is soaked with syrup, boiled of maraschino or mandarino liqueur, then it is covered with pieces of almond dry shortcake and of the same biscuit. A layer of curds-cream crowns it all. In this way several layers are alternated. Then the cake is covered with sugar icing, cream and candied fruits.

The aborigines adore small cakes cassatine too. But still the most popular dainties are marzipans frutta Martorana, which represent cakes of almond flour in the shape of fruits. They can be kept for half a year at room temperature. They got their name in honor of a nun from Martorana monastery, who had invented this dish.

Sicilian Wines

We can’t forget here about Sicilian wines which are well-known throughout Europe. Sicilian top wine is , surely, marsala (it is the name of the sort of grapes that grow on the western coast of the island). Magnificently tasty is “Milk of Venus” — a hard drink (about 30 degrees) of white color with a delicate aroma of honey and herbs. According to the legend, its recipe has been kept in secret since the 1st century B.C., when it was served to travelers in the temple of Venus Erisian.