What to Eat in Italy: Typical Italian Food and Specialties | Page 3 of 6
What to Bring Back from Sicily?
From Sicily I bring back busiate and caserecce pasta, cheeses from small local producers and grainy Modica chocolate with its protected IGP label. Add candied orange peel, anise cookies made just outside Palermo and a small bottle of bittersweet amaro that even makes it through airport security. And cheap ceramics with Sicilian motifs make a gift that always lands well.
Bar Touring: The Genovese Family's Palermo Bar for Locals
An Italian bar is not a place for a night out but a daytime institution - and Bar Touring, by the Villa Giulia park in Palermo, has been one since 1959. From early morning until midnight the Genovese family sells coffee, cornetti, cannoli and the flagship arancina bomba, all 400 grams of it. Plus a tiramisu that shouldn't have stood a chance in a temple of Sicilian sweets - and won anyway.
Gelateria Al Cassaro: Gelato on the Oldest Street in Palermo
Gelateria Al Cassaro stands on the oldest street in Palermo and carries its old Arabic name - Cassaro, the fortress. The display case rotates through some thirty flavors of gelato, including a peanut specialty named after the shop itself; Gambero Rosso listed it among the best gelaterias in Sicily. It's open until midnight, so gelato here is still an option long after dinner.
Sfrigola Bistro: Arancini Fried to Order in Palermo
Street food you wait for: the Palermo bistro chain Sfrigola fries its arancini only once you've ordered and puts the whole operation behind glass. Who is behind a place named after the sound of sizzling fat, why the arancina is always a woman here, and how my version with porchetta, cheese and pickled porcini tasted.
Sfincione: A Tall Leavened Flatbread from Palermo with Onion and Anchovies
Sfincione is a tall, spongy leavened flatbread from Palermo with slow-cooked onion, tomatoes, anchovies and breadcrumbs with cheese, one that not even the Italians can quite place - somewhere between pizza and focaccia. The name "Sicilian pizza" came from America. Where it comes from, why it originally had no tomatoes and how it tasted from a cart by the del Capo market.
Sarde a Beccafico: Sicilian Sardines Stuffed with Breadcrumbs and Raisins
Sarde a beccafico are Sicilian sardines opened out like a book, stuffed with toasted breadcrumbs, raisins and pine nuts and baked with the tail sticking up, so that they look like the little bird they are named after. Palermo bakes them, Catania fries them with cheese, Messina stews them in tomatoes. I bought mine at the del Capo and Ballarò markets, two pieces for a euro.
Ballarò Market: Where Palermo Eats Breakfast
The oldest and largest of Palermo's historic markets reaches your ears before it reaches your eyes: the vendors hawk their wares in a singsong chant called abbanniata. Panelle sizzle among the stalls, boiled octopus is sliced to order and oysters wait on ice. You can put a whole breakfast together here, from raw shrimp to baked ricotta with honey - all you have to do is walk from stall to stall.
Caponata: Sicilian Sweet-and-Sour Vegetables with Eggplant
Caponata is a Sicilian sweet-and-sour mix of fried eggplant, celery, olives and capers in a tomato sauce with vinegar and sugar, served cold as an appetizer. The name supposedly comes from an expensive fish the barons ate, though linguists trace it to a galley capon instead. Why the eggplant is fried on its own, why caponata is best on the second day, and how it tasted in a Palermo restaurant devoted to the local football club.
Al Vecchio Club Rosanero Restaurant: A Soccer Trattoria in Palermo
A small trattoria in a side alley off via Maqueda has handed its whole interior over to Palermo's soccer club - and sends out huge portions at prices that are hard to find in the city center. Why a half portion here means a normal one, what the pink and black shirts have to do with the Florio family's liqueurs, and what a seven-dish dinner for two came to?
Arancini: Sicilian Fried Rice Balls
Arancini are fried balls of saffron-tinted rice, filled with meat ragù or something else and rolled in breadcrumbs - the best-known street food in Sicily. Palermo makes them round and calls them arancina, Catania makes them pointed like Etna and calls them arancino; the island has been arguing over a single letter for decades. And the oldest Sicilian dictionary lists them as a dessert.