Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Three Colours
Sicily's favourite ingredients can be grouped according to the
tricolore
- the three colours
of the Italian flag. The following are the basics that will be found in the pantry of any Si-
cilian; through these you can get to the core of the island's cuisine.
Red
You may think red is the colour of passion, but when it comes to Sicilian cooking, it's also
the colour of the most important ingredient of all: the tomato.
Il pomodoro
or
il po-
modorino
(cherry tomato) is at the foundation of most sauces, whether it's cooked,
blanched or simply scattered fresh over a heap of pasta. Sicilian tomatoes are renowned
throughout Italy for their sweet flavour, especially the
pomodoro di Pachino
, a special vari-
ety that's cultivated in southeastern Sicily. You'll often see tomatoes hanging in bunches
outside houses (especially on the island of Salina, where the locals claim it's the best way
to keep them fresh). Sun-dried tomatoes are another way of preserving tomatoes, and many
Sicilians use this version in the winter months, when fresh tomatoes aren't easy to find.
Peppers are another must-have vegetable for Sicilians, and you'll find both the bell-
shaped version and the long, pointy type in many starters and antipasti. A favourite dish in-
volving red, green and yellow peppers is
peperonata in agridolce,
where peppers are
stewed with onions, pine nuts, raisins and capers.
Almost all restaurants in Sicily charge €2 to €3 per person for
pane e coperto
(bread and cover charge). Theoret-
ically this pays for the basket of bread that's brought out while you wait for the rest of your meal to arrive.
If the waiter forgets, just ask!
White
Garlic is, of course, a major ingredient in Sicilian cooking. It is added to around 80% of sa-
voury recipes, and it sometimes forms the main component of a sauce, as in
spaghetti aglio
olio
(spaghetti with garlic and oil) - simple and delicious. Sicilians use crushed fresh
cloves, most commonly on grilled or baked fish, or fry it thinly sliced to flavour the oil.
'White' is also for cheese. Sicilians like to sprinkle liberal helpings of a strong cheese
called
caciocavallo
on their pasta dishes (despite the word
cavallo,
which means 'horse',
the cheese is actually made from cow's milk). Parmesan has only recently found its way
