An Appetite for Sicily

Sicily is only three miles from mainland Italy as the fish swims, but it has always been its own place. The Mediterranean island off the toe of the Italian peninsula was influenced over the course of thousands of years by Greek, Roman, Arab, North African and European raiders, invaders and occupiers, each leaving their mark. The island’s people consider themselves Sicilian first, Italian a distant second, with their own dialect, culture and cuisine.

Lately, that cuisine is being rediscovered in the United States as “authentic Italian”: fish, pasta and tomato-based recipes lively with herbs and spices, edging out the recently fashionable minimalist Northern Italian fare.

After years of writing about Italian cooking, I went on a tasting expedition last summer and came away happy.

Sicily may be the last place in Europe still untouched by American fast-food chains. An advertising campaign while we were there featured a thick slice of fresh mozzarella and tomato on a bun with the word “Sicilianburger.”

My husband and I and our two sons, 5 and 16, spent nearly two weeks on the island after a stop in Rome. Most of our Sicilian stay was at a working family farm--50 acres of citrus, grapes, figs and olives--outside the port city of Catania. The farm was managed by the aristocratic and charming Anna Sapuppo, who guided us to the best of the region’s foods, from mushrooms to ice cream to wine. We had a little cottage that was our base for day trips; it had a full kitchen where we could prepare light suppers after days of feasting, or we could order dinner from the family cook. That was our choice the first night, when we arrived exhausted by the train-ferry-car trip from Rome.

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Served on our terrace, with the orange groves and Mt. Etna as backdrop, the first course was a simple pasta with anchovy-spiked tomato sauce, an island classic. It had a salty bite, and the topping of toasted bread crumbs (instead of grated cheese on pasta with fish) was a crunchy surprise. The entree was an involtini--thin beef slices rolled around a stuffing of ground meat, spices and bread crumbs. A tart filled with the farm’s prized blood oranges topped off a meal that felt like a short course in Sicilian cookery.

After a night’s rest, prepared to drive again, we headed for the interior to see the amazing 4th century mosaics of the Villa Romana in the town of Piazza Armerina and the 142-step majolica-tiled staircase at Caltagirone. Anna had advised us to have lunch at a crossroads spot between the two, San Michele di Ganzaria. She said the village had prospered due to the stream of family members leaving for jobs in Germany and the United States and returning with money. When we pulled onto the main street, hot and tired from sightseeing, we thought Anna might be playing some weird Sicilian joke on us. Nothing even remotely resembled a restaurant. But when we inquired at the local bar, all fingers pointed decisively uphill. We followed their direction and had a splendid lunch at the unpretentious Hotel Pomara.

In the dimly lighted, wood-paneled dining room overlooking rolling hills, most of the seats were occupied by ample men working their cell phones. We ate a bountiful lunch casa nostra--literally, “our house,” or the chef’s choice, without a menu to addle our already overstimulated brains.

The first course was three hot antipastos--a layered dish of roasted broccoli bits topped with whipped ricotta and bread crumbs, eggplant rolls stuffed with tomato-infused rice, and a melted chunk of cheese infused with fennel. Pasta was thick ribbons of fettuccine in tomato sauce spiked with fennel. Though we were well-filled by the time the entree arrived, it was the hand’s-down favorite--at least for the men in my family. Each plate had one long, thin, perfectly spiced smoked sausage twirled around its rim, and in the center were three short skewers or spiedini of ham-wrapped mozzarella just barely softened on the grill.

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We decided to burn off some calories the next morning with a visit to Mt. Etna, Sicily’s active volcano, before lunching at Nicolosi, a small town known for its wild mushrooms at the foot of the access road.

We settled on a neighborhood trattoria, Al Buon Gustaio, and since we were lunching late, we got to watch the owner and his son prepare the dough for the evening’s pizza.

To begin, we chose from a table of cold antipastos. Eggplant, one of the island’s mainstays, was prominently featured, ranging from the simply grilled to the sumptuously stuffed. But the one I craved was the classic caponata--a sweet-and-sour relish of fried eggplant, celery and peppers cut in chunks and mixed in a sauce of vinegar, sugar and raisins, served with grilled bread. The wild mushrooms came in pasta dishes of different tomato-based sauces.

As we sipped our espresso at the end of the meal and marveled at our good fortune in discovering this little gem, a framed glossy of Italian director Franco Zefferelli sitting with the proprietor winked at us from the rustic wall.

To pay back the kids for yet another long lunch, we stopped that evening at a small town called Santa Venerina on Etna’s eastern slope to sample the chocolate granita--a shaved-ice dessert--Anna had swooned about. Of all the regions of Italy, Sicily is known for its gelato (ice cream) and other sweets, owing to its Arabic roots. At the venerable Pasticceria Russo, a 100-year-old pastry shop, we relaxed and savored sublime granite of coffee, mulberry, almond and chocolate. There we also caught our first glimpse of Sicily’s signature sweet, pasta reale--marzipan (almond paste) pastries molded and decorated to resemble fruits, vegetables, chestnuts, sea horses, almost anything the mind can imagine.

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The next day, we headed south of Catania to see the ancient Ortygia quarter in Syracuse and, a few miles beyond, Noto, with its crumbling Baroque cathedral and the pastry shop of Corrado Costanzo, the master of Sicilian sweets. At the Ortygia market, a block from the sea, we spent a morning being dazzled by the display of freshly caught swordfish and tuna, the beauty of the tomatoes and the lively bustle of the people. But at hot and dusty Noto, we lost our hearts.

At Costanzo’s cafe, just down the steps behind the cathedral, we ate a typical quick Sicilian lunch: focacce (flat half-moons of bread stuffed with cheese and bits of meat) and arancini di riso (rice balls the size of oranges, stuffed with cheese, coated in bread crumbs and fried). Dessert was to be the main event, but, given the heat, we passed on the rich pastries and stuck with Costanzo’s transcendent gelati and granite--and a pink-frosted shortbread heart that our 5-year-old deemed excellent, a rating he rarely gave in Sicily since often the pastries were too sweet and sticky for his tastes.

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To get the full flavor of Sicily, you need to experience the west side of the island. So we headed west to Agrigento, where the Greek temple of Concorde stands nearly intact. As a treat we had lunch at the equally fabled Hotel Villa Athena. The dining room was air-conditioned and the menu more refined than what we were becoming accustomed to.

We lunched lightly on thin ribbons of pasta coated with lemony cream sauce, grilled swordfish and vegetables. For dessert, it was back to Sicilian excess with a sponge cake interspersed with layers of custard and cream and topped with thinly sliced nectarines. Our waiter seemed relieved that we ordered it.

The place that I most wanted to see we saved almost for last--the magical hilltop medieval village of Erice. Here we sought out the traditional sweets of Maria Grammatica, a former nun who continues the tradition of pastry-making taught to her in the convent more than 30 years ago. This hard-working entrepreneur (she owns two pastry shops and a cafe in the tiny town) is the last of a vanishing breed. She and her staff still carve painstakingly accurate Pascal lambs and 3-foot-tall dolls out of almond paste for holidays. Every other day of the year, the gleaming glass pastry cases are filled with a wide selection of almond-based cookies and pastries, fruit tarts and millefoglie (puff pastry creations).

I melted away over her Genovese--a 3-inch dome of ethereal pastry filled with a perfect pastry cream and dusted with powdered sugar. Then I had her pack me one for the road.

After dessert, we headed up the hill and through a cobblestone alleyway to the Monte San Giuliano restaurant for lunch. On its simple stone patio, we tasted some of the island’s seafood specialties. As appetizer, we had swordfish served carpaccio style, and smoked; both were delicate and buttery and elegantly served with toast points. For the pasta course we shared two Sicilian classics--spaghetti alla Norma in a fried eggplant and tomato sauce, and pasta con le sarde, a layered dish of sardines, fennel, pasta and a complex sauce of onion, anchovies, almonds and raisins. For the main course, we sampled the North African-influenced seafood couscous and, in a valiant effort to taste one more classic before leaving, we ordered a plate of grilled fresh sardines. They were fantastic, their thin little skins blackened and crunchy from the grill and served simply with olive oil, lemon and parsley.

Before we took the ferry to Naples the next day, we made an important stop in Palermo, Sicily’s capital, on the north coast. We visited the Antica Focacceria San Francesco, a fast-food joint akin in spirit to Philippe’s in downtown Los Angeles. Since 1854, its countermen have been turning out Sicily’s prime fast-food treat, the pani ca’ meusa, a sandwich of sauteed beef spleen and ricotta cheese, sprinkled with tangy Caciocavallo cheese. Seating is family-style at long tables with benches, and the service is fast but friendly, especially for foreigners. As soon as the old-timer at the counter realized just how foreign we were (Sicily still doesn’t see many American tourists), he helped us sit down and work our way through the rustic menu--sfincione (thick squares of pizza) for the kids, plenty of beef spleen and side orders of potato mint fritters for the (somewhat wary) grown-ups.

Our senses awash in the people’s warmth, their legendary cuisine and the eternal chaos that is downtown Palermo, we headed to the port for our trip back to the mainland--sorry to be leaving Sicily, but very well-fed.

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GUIDEBOOK

Savoring Sicily

Getting there: There’s connecting service L.A.-Palermo with no change of carriers only on Alitalia (plane change in Rome). Otherwise, take any carrier to Rome, changing to Alitalia to Palermo. Lowest round-trip fares begin at about $1,400.

Where to stay: Agriturist (Associazione Nazionale per L’Agriturismo) in Rome provides lists of working farms offering lodging (fax 011-39-6-685-2424).

Alcala, Casella Postale 100, Misterbianco, Catania, 95045; local telephone and fax, 130-029. Cottage for two adults, two children, about $68 per day, food not included.

Where to eat: Lunch for two with wine and dessert runs about $45; sweets and coffee, $10-$15 in the following eateries:

Hotel Ristorante Pomara, 84 Via Vittorio Veneto, San Michele di Ganzaria; tel. 978-032.

Pasticceria Russo, 105 Via Vittorio Emanuele, Santa Venerina; tel. 953-202.

Corrado Costanzo, 7-9 Via Silvio Spaventa, Noto; tel. 835-243.

Pasticceria Maria Grammatico, 14 Via Vittorio Emanuele, Erice; tel. 869-390.

Ristorante Monte San Guiliano, 7 Vicolo San Rocco, Erice; tel. 869-595.

Antica Focacceria San Francesco, 58 Via Paternostro, Palermo.

Hotel Villa Athena, 33 Via del Templi, Agrigento; tel. 596-288

For more information: Italian Government Tourist Board, 12400 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 550, Los Angeles, CA 90025; tel. (310) 820-0098, fax (310) 820-6357.