Capers of all kinds are highly prevalent in Sicilian cuisine, which makes sense, as they provide a handy means of blessing dishes (many of them pastas) with a sprinkle of bracing vegetal saltiness, important for the ocean-fresh flavor that buoys so many meals here. Other prominent uses include the Ghiotta (“greedy”) style of cooking fish, a name I assume comes from how much stuff gets thrown onto the aquatic fiends. I find this style to be reminiscent of the Mexican Pescado Verucruzano, although I’m not sure there’s a direct relation; if there is, it’s probably Arabic. Ghiotta preparations can also be applied to Stockfish and Baccala, which I always assumed to be the same thing but are apparently not (the former is dried, the latter salted). Cod isn’t endemic to the Mediterranean, and legends trace it’s origin back to early contact between Italian sailors and Vikings, although it’s conceivable any fisherman worth his salt ( :) ) who was trawling the North Atlantic during its most abundant years would have ended up with a considerable stock of cod on hand. Sicily, luckily enough, has more than enough salt to accommodate such preservation.
I had similar thoughts about the Greek (Ionica, officially) salad enjoyed at Dai Pennisi in Linguaglossa. This one hewed pretty closely to what you’d find doled out in titanic portions at any American diner (likely the location furthest removed from a Sicilian Osteria I can imagine) with one key difference. Here, the medley of sliced red onion, tomato and diced cucumber was joined by ricotta salata instead of feta. Nothing special, at least not in the sense that such congregations of immaculately fresh ingredients are absolutely routine here, but it’s interesting to note the slight differences, as well as the desire to ascribe them to larger local tastes when they may just be one specific preparation.
Verging back into fried pastry territory, there’s also Cassatelle di Formaggio, (employing sweet ricotta, mascarpone or other fillings) which to me appear identical to the sweet variant of the Crespelle mentioned in the back half of this prior post, although there are likely dozens of variants, including Ciarduna, as well as the savory Easter pie known as Fiadone, which to complicate things further (as always) is also the name of a Corsican cheese pastry and an Abruzzese cheese puff.
There’s also Cucchiteddi (almond biscuits from Sciacca), Cuccia (sweet wheatberries), Cucchia (a Christmas pastry), Cuccidati (Christmas fig cookie) and many others whose names don’t begin with Cucc, such as the pastry/cake hybrid known as Sfoghlio (hailing from Madonie, and more specifically, Polizzano), which may share some connection with the Campanian Sfogliatella.
So I’ll mostly bypass the delicious razor clams, prawns (not this one, which I did not encounter), swordfish and sardines consumed on the trip, although perhaps the Seviche merits discussion. Like so many things across the varied food cultures of the Mediterranean, Sicily’s raw fish preparations all function as weird mirror-images of Spanish food and its New World descendants, from straightforward Swordfish Seviche (“Schibecci” in Sicilian, sharing the same Latin “Escabeche” root as all the others) to Pesce Crudo, which dispenses with the vinegar in favor of a splash of olive oil. There’s also the eggplant variety, which draws the preparation style away from the world of fresh fish, and results in something that, to my eyes at least, is indistinguishable from the classic Caponata (discussed in greater detail in the following post). I also enjoy the parity here between this ingredient-swapped Seviche and eggplant caviar, in my mind a similar dish, which finds another partner in Balkan ajvar, itself a vegetable-based variant of caviar concocted by those without access to fresh fish eggs.
These are all historic products of the Mattanza (“massacre”) the famous, famously brutal tuna hunt that arrived in 9th century Sicily via Arab seafarers, and supposedly dates back to Phoenician times. The final note in this festival of fish parts is Lattume, the sizable sperm sacs of the tuna, which are served sometimes over pasta, sometimes fried, sometimes baked. They sporadically sell the smaller, squigglier Korean version of these organs (known in English as milt, usually harvested from cod or pollock) at the H Mart near my office, so I may attempt to throw some in a pasta, as soon as I can find someone willing to eat fish sperm sacs with me.
One theory holds that Marinara (“Mariner’s Sauce”) gained its name via association with the sailors who first transported tomatoes back from the New World, but it seems far more likely to me that the key detail is the lack of fresh tomatoes available during sea travel. Like Italian-Americans living in cities, who often had to make do with sauces produced from canned tomatoes bulked up with paste, the Neapolitan seamen who serve as the dish’s namesake would have needed additional elements to liven up their red sauce. Here that is not the case, and the tomatoes are fully capable of shining all own their own.
Fritella: also known as Fritedda, a thick stew of beans and artichokes more commonly seen after the spring harvest, a peasant dish that likely dates back to Greek occupation.
Insalata di Arance: a pleasant-looking orange salad, featuring the fruit cut in thin slices and tossed with olive oil and parsley. Just across the water in Tunisia, you’ll find similar dishes, some of which push even further into savory territory. On the sweeter side, another common Sicilian menu item is the Macedonia de Frutta, which dresses its fruits with a mix of sugar and lemon juice. The name seems to have very little to do with the geographical region Macedonia, instead connecting back to the French culinary term for any diverse melange of ingredients, allowing me to assign another point to the Monzus.
Even sweeter are the mock marzipan fruits known as Frutta Martorana, for the monastery in Palermo where they supposedly originated. Long since shuttered, the 12th century Baroque cathedral that housed it is now home to a congregation of Arbërshë, long-ago immigrants from Albania whose food (the cannoli-like Kanojët appears to be one prominent example) represents one more buried thread of the larger Sicilian quilt. Like Ncannellati, another almond-derived treat, Marzipan represents a fine use for the island’s many almonds, although the confection originates elsewhere, likely brought over from Arab-controlled Spain a millennia or so ago. The fruits are now generally produced from molds, but still occasionally made by hand, as I imagine are the delicate Easter Lambs known as Agnelli Pasquale. The candied version of a traditional holiday dish, and perhaps a more respectful tradition to celebrate the resurrection of the so-called Lamb of God, formalizes a roast otherwise regionalized to the nth degree
Sciuscieddu: another prime example of linguistic chaos. This term appears to indicate at least four different, seemingly unrelated dishes. There is an underlying principle, however, at least in this case: according to the late character actor Vincent Schiavelli’s Papa Andrea's Sicilian Table “Sciuscieddu is a wonderful Sicilian word. It refers to a steaming dish, over which one would blow, shu-shu, to cool it off.” So, the rundown: The first, and apparently most common, is a soup endemic to the Messina area, otherwise similar to Roman Egg Drop, aka Stracciatella alla Romana; the second, an easter lamb hand pie; the third, a kind of veal and ricotta casserole; the fourth, as described in Schiavelli’s own book, a dish of steamed, lemon-soaked whiting. For another good example of multiple variations on a single name, take the dish called “Pasticcio di Sostanza” or “Pie of Substance,” which seems to describe a different savory pie every time. The “Pie of Substance” tradition also seems to have roots in Monzu cookery.
On the island, the Turk’s Head is also a savory dish, designed on the same visual principle, albeit one whose potential Google results have been snowed under by those for its more famous, sweeter cousin. There’s also something called Turk’s Salami, although this apparently gets its name from the color granted by the cocoa, which would have recalled the skin tone of the so-called “Turk”. This proves that to some extent, the Asiatic Turks and the African Moors had become fused in popular sentiment, joined together in an ignorant couplet of “otherness” that largely persists to this day. Like many places with a sustained pattern of racial mixing in their past, Sicily is often loath to admit the cross-continental background of many of its citizens. Finally, there’s also Mohammed’s Moons, another snack with vaguely foreign ingredients that attempts to exoticize itself through name and design.