Some years ago I reached the
breaking point where I had read about all the Scandinavian crime literature a
sane human being can handle and decided to venture onto pastures new. Since
Scandinavian poetry seemed to be somewhat taxing, I stayed with the crimes, but
went for more sub-tropical ones, namely the books of Sicilian author Andrea Camilleri. His Montalbano series has a cult following in Italy and is also
quite popular with English readers- I don’t envy translator Stephen Sartarelli
for having to find a good way out of Camilleri’s charming but often uneven mix
of Italian and Sicilian, but I must admit he’s being superb at it.
The thing that most spectacularly
sets Montalbano apart from his Northern peers is the food. Whereas Scandinavian
crime writers seem to take dubious pleasure in describing the measly
sandwiches, unappetizing leftovers, sordid re-heated pasta concoctions and
possibly, in the case of Icelanders, half rotten fish dishes the detectives munch
on between apprehending two cold hearted serial killers, Camilleri takes a much
more understandable pleasure in lavishing sumptuous meals on his hero.
This therefore leads us up to the
pivotal matter of what to eat and drink in Sicily. The answer is to be
found in Camilleri’s books again, when the detective, asked by his faithful
restaurant owning friend what he would like to eat modestly replies:
everything. Sicilian food is basically the awe inducing distillation of all the
best elements of both Italian and Mediterranean cuisine.
Due to its mild climate, the
island is a natural home to mouthwatering produce such as tomatoes, olives,
capers, oranges and lemons, aubergines, almonds or pistachios, which then get
mixed into usually rather basic but absolutely appetizing recipes. It’s also
intriguing to see how, although Arab occupation is today a thing of the distant
past, the elements of oriental cooking are still very evident in Sicily,
setting its dishes apart from those of continental Italy.
One dish which islanders claim to
be theirs (to the dismay of Neapolitans) and seems to have received a bit of
Arab help in its introduction is pasta. The legend of Marco Polo bringing pasta
from China is more widespread yet historically extremely dodgy, therefore I
tend to side with the Sicilians on this delicate subject. The factually sounder version is that dry
pasta was brought to Sicily by the Arabs and thence, speckled with various
sauces, it spread first onto continental Italy, then the rest of Europe and
finally, modestly, it conquered the world. All the classical Italian pasta
dishes are available in Sicily as well, but you may consider trying local ones,
such as pasta alla norma (which hails from Catania and sports aubergines),
pasta alla trapanese (which hails from, well, Trapani and sports almonds) or pasta
con le sarde (its coordinates are Palermo and sardines).
Another tell-tale sign of Arabic
traditions is couscous, which is more typical of the western shore of the
island, especially around Trapani, but can be found pretty much anywhere- the
classical Sicilian version is couscous al pesce. Fish and other creatures of
the sea are of course staple dishes, with swordfish being the most frequently
used alongside tuna, cuttlefish and seabass. This here is basically Chinese to
me, as the names of fish in any language have always been esoteric mysteries. I
am kind of happy I can tell a shark and a dolphin apart, and know that the
latter is a mammal. Actually, it’s more than Chinese, basically a translation
from Mandarin to Cantonese- I just jutted down the Italian names from the
menus, and then googled them English. I
can however vouch for the swordfish, which I have already tasted in Greece
previously and found to be un-fish-like enough for me, and also recommend pasta
dishes with swordfish.
A crowning achievement of
Sicilian cuisine is caponata- eggplant salad with capers in a sweet and sour
sauce, which, according to the region, can be un-vegetarianized with octopus,
lobster, shrimp or the by now oft mentioned swordfish. The island also has its singular and pretty ancient street food item as well: arancini are thought to date back to the 10th century and Arab rule. They are small orange shaped (hence the name) rice balls deep fried in bread crumbs and usually filled with ragù, mozzarella and peas. In the Catania region they are generally more conical, which I found to be not very congruent with the name, but they taste absolutely delicious nevertheless.
I will confess to finding
most Sicilian sweets overly sweet- yes, I perfectly understand the silliness of
my statement, sweets are supposed to be exactly that, sweet. And Sicilians take
this point very seriously- their number one specialty, the cannoli, are ricotta
filled pastry tubes, and just when one is about to sigh in relief that ricotta
can’t be that sweet after all, let me tell you, it contains candied fruit and
is a supernova of sweetness.
Cassata has Proustian effects on
me by bringing to mind the mythical pastry shop of my childhood- Romanians were
always in awe of Italian sweet making and loved to give both stores and
products often misspelled Italianate names- our shop was Casata, and to this
day I find it hard to place the accent correctly in Italian as we all know that
old habits die hard. More to the point,
though, cassata is basically cannoli on speed: sponge cake moistened with fruit
juice and or liqueur, layered with ricotta, candied peel and chocolate or
vanilla filling.
In case you are about to turn mildly
diabetic after consuming a cassata, you might chill down with a granita, a
semi-frozen dessert of water, various flavours, usually of local fruit, and,
yes, sugar. This leads us to another Sicilian obsession, that of ice, and
besides the ubiquitous Italian ice creams they also indulge in making semifreddi,
which are basically half frozen mousses. Sweet mousses.
When it comes to alcohol, Sicily
is best known for wines- both the climate and the volcanic soils of the Etna
region being perfect for growing grapes. A typical and quite excellent local
red is the Nero d’Avola, and, surprise,
they also make plenty of desert wines such as the famous Marsala. Our trip has
however revealed to us an up and coming craft beer scene- Bar Licchio's in
Taormina has a selection of fine local beers both from Sicily and continental
Italy, while Birrifcio Timilia’s ales seem to be the most widespread ones in
restaurants- bottled versions are still quite hard to find in stores though.
True to their wino nature, Sicilians
usually serve beers in 0.75 l bottles, chilled and in what look conspicuously like
wine glasses- they are pretty pricey too, but definitely worth a try. Commercial beers have never been Italy's strength, but local contender Messina is definitely of a better sort, a passable light summer beer to be sipped by the beach. Regarding spirits, limoncellos and other
cremoncellos (cream liquors with various flavours, such as pistachio or orange)
are typical for the area, and some pretty good, yet not overly strong amari
(Amaro Averna, Amaro dell’Etna) are also available- usually consumed after the
meal, hence leading to cross cultural confusion over the Eastern European habit
of drinking the shot before the meal, to open the appetite- Sicilians seem not
to need it, just a bit of help with digestion at the end.
I originally intended the food
and drink section to be pretty short and to the point- and perhaps it actually
is, by Sicilian standards, therefore we can now proceed to the part about what
one can see and do on the Ionian coast. Firstly, of course, you can bathe.
As already mentioned in the previous post, Giardini Naxos, about an hour’s bus
ride from Catania, has some fine sandy beaches, with several well-kept lidos
that offer umbrellas and sun beds for rent, usually for about 15 euros per day
for a set and generally have a restaurant included as well. The beaches closer to Taormina, at Mazzaró and
Letojanni, are somewhat pricier and also a bit stonier overall- they compensate
with the view and the closeness of the island (or peninsula, depending on the
sea level) of Isola Bella, which used to be the property of Florence Trevelyan
but is now a nature reserve and can be visited.
Taormina herself is of course
near mythical, one of the most fashionable holidaying spots in Italy, alongside
the likes of Capri or the Amalfi Coast. It is also extensively featured in one
of my favourite films, Luc Besson’s The Big Blue. I therefore had great
expectations- and was somehow afraid and even half convinced that they would be
deceived. But for once I was wrong, and happy about it. The location for one is
absolutely breathtaking- it’s not postcard perfect, it’s better, because you
see more of it, feel more of it, the breeze coming from the sea, the almost
unsettling majesty of Etna on the horizon. The town was also completely
livable- maybe only due to it being September already, but bar the Corso and
the environs of the Greek Amphitheatre, one could have a pleasant walk along
half deserted streets without being overrun by herds of tourists.
As I’ve mentioned it before, I am
not a big fan of visiting museums in places I’ve hardly ‘met’, so the only
museum-like endeavour we ventured on was the Greek Amphitheatre, because that
is an absolute must- the views are stupendous yet again and the structure
itself is amazingly well preserved and gives great insight into the Greek chapter
of the island’s past. As I was pottering around on the hillside area towards
Castelmola I also completely accidentally bumped into Casa Cuseni- now a
museum, it is the house at the heart of Daphne Phelps’s memoir, A House in Sicily, which is the best possible beach read one could wish for on a
Sicilian holiday. Other two musts when
in Taormina are a visit to the Public Garden (Giardino Pubblico) (it’s that view again) and a
short coffee break at Wunderbar- it will be a pretty expensive coffee break, but
it’d be such a pity to miss the place where Tennessee Williams used to sit and
watch ‘the squares go by’.
Totally opposed to Taormina, I
had but the haziest of ideas about Syracuse- something about it being Greek
somehow, but in Italy, I couldn’t even place it properly on the map- perhaps
because it never had a decent football team: Siracusa Calcio presently loiters in
the third division and I just spent precious minutes on a perusal of its long
and frankly pathetic history, which involves one of those wonderful Italian
football terms I learned back in the good old days: ripescato, re-fished, teams
which are saved from lower divisions due to some typically Italian
administrative quirks and rethinks.
Syracuse the city is, however,
everything its measly team is not: one of the most powerful city-states of
Ancient Greece, it was also one of the biggest Greek cities in size, an equal
of Athens in certain periods, and the birthplace of Archimedes. Today its best
sights are fortuitously located on and around the Ortigia island, a jewel box
of a Mediterranean city, with a maze of winding streets, courtyards, nooks and
crannies, small bars and restaurants. It also has a totally spectacular sea
front which at some point is modestly interrupted by the Greek fountain of
Arethusa- the lady was a Nereid and so upset by the attentions of river god
Alpheus that she turned into a stream of water. Please note here my powers of synthesis,
quite similar to Woody Allen summing up War
and Peace as involving Russia. Sicily is generally fecund from the point of
view of godly activity, as we shall also see when touching upon the Gole dell’Alcantara
a bit later on.
The city never again matched its
ancient glory, though it did provide the world a revered saint- Saint Lucy, or
Santa Lucia as the locals know her- her remains are presently in the city’s
cathedral, the Duomo, while Caravaggio’s painting of her is located in the
other church which shares the Piazza Duomo with the cathedral- since I have
become increasingly exasperated with ornate churches I’ve been to none, but
some more enterprising visitors might give it a try.
Pretty much wherever you are on
the Ionian coast, one presence will be looming large on the horizon: Mount Etna
is, at 3329 metres the tallest active volcano in Europe and is affectionately
called by the locals ‘a muntagna- the
mountain. It’s not hard to see why. There is something primeval and elemental
in its presence, something that makes it one of a kind, a highly beautiful and
highly dangerous companion giving its people fertile volcanic soils harbouring
lush vegetation and then suddenly wiping everything out of existence. Etna has however been on her best behaviour
lately- although she is constantly active, with minor eruptions succeeding each
other on a regular basis, the last event which lead to the destruction of an
inhabited area was in 1928, and we have to go back all the way to 1669 for an
eruption which could be called almost cataclysmic- the lava flows reached the harbour
of Catania, though the number of proven fatalities is actually pretty low- it’s
usually earthquakes, closely related to Etna’s presence in this part of the
world, which prove deadlier.
These days ‘A Muntagna is mostly
a tourist attraction- there are several companies organizing trips by bus or jeep
to the Sapienza Refuge area at 1910 metres, from where a cable car takes you up
to 2500 metres. It’s worth checking and booking in advance- this is what we,
seasoned travelers, did not do- as trips are not necessarily daily and leave
either very early in the morning, or just in time for the sunset. An
alternative way of exploring the area is by taking the Ferrovia Circumetnea- a
narrow gauge railway running around the mountain from Catania to Riposto. And
yes, you can also drive up to the Sapienza Refuge in your teeny-weeny but super
practical Fiat.
Since we missed out on getting
better acquainted to Etna, we satisfied our geological thirst by visiting the gorges of the Alcantara river, which runs just south of Giardini Naxos and
Taormina. It’s a smallish river of very cold waters, but as its bed was at one
point blocked by Etna’s lava flow, it is now surrounded by spectacular
symmetrical rock formations. For a 13 euro ticket you can visit the upper
section of the gorges and then descend to the small beach by the river- the
park also has many examples of Sicily’s typical vegetation and your printed
guide will informatively lead you through the ancient couple crisis of gods
Vulcan and Venera who had a bit of an argument over a possible third element of
their relationship, which lead to Vulcan cooling the waters of the river out of
spite.
Having reached a high point with
this both very mature and very Mediterranean way of handling things, it was
time to bid farewell to Sicily- one week on its Eastern coast brought us to the
deep acceptance of the philosophical stance according to which the only thing
we know is that we know very little, and we must therefore return to learn a
little more.
