Pecse
So much things to say!
This is the second draft of a piece that I wrote two days ago but lost it in the technical vortex of the internet.
But to bring it all back...I was in Sicily up untill a two days ago. I'm in Rome for the moment but more on that in a minute. Sicily is an island. Not just geographically but metaphorically as well. It's about 30 years behind the rest of Italy in terms of its modernization and it seems to live life on its own warped sense of time. It was lovely to be there to say the least. Palermo was a place of extreme contrasts in its feel as a town. Sweet and sour, old and new, light and dark, rich and poor. I spent two pretty rainy days there but still managed to get a few hours of sun here and there. The buildings in Palermo are like the town; layered and layered with wave after wave of styles of each succssive occupier. There is a distinct feeling of Muslim presence there, with the spices in the markets that are unique to the Sicily (cinnamon, cumin, fennel, corriander), there are Moorish domes that cluster the skyline behind rows of palm trees, and there is a contagious energy in the markets where the men chant the product and price down the alleys to attract business. I may have mentioned that I was buying bags of strawberries from a guy that was yelling, " Fragola...Fragola..Fragola...Un Kilo, Due Euro....," I spent alot of time walking up and down the street markets checking out all the piles of olives, oranges, fennel, cheeses, and salumi. No discussion of the Sicilian markets would be complete without the fish. The tables of ice were packed with the local daily catches which were always sword fish with the severed head displayed so that the blue-grey beak sticks three feet up in the air. Baby octopus, shrimp, bream, spiny lobster, all kinds of fresh sardeen and anchovy. They were all kept slick and fresh looking by the men wearing full length yellow rubber aprons who watered down the catch with garden buckets. The pastties are some of the nicest I've seen in italy so far. Everything seems to be made out of almond or pistachio paste and dusted with sugar.
Palermo's favorite street side snack is the boiled spleen sandwich. There are carts on most corners with steaming tubs of this most pungent meat simmering away in its juices. The sandwich itself is a sesame bun (they love their sesame seeds here too) with some meat piled on, and then some ricotta all wrapped in a paper napkin. It tastes like a liver sandwich with a few rubber bands thrown in for texture. As the song goes, when you're in Palermo huddled under a statue of Neptune, standing in a puddle in the rain, with your lips wrapped around a steaming spleen sandwich...that's amore.
Italy is the South of Europe, and Sicily is the South of Italy, and the South like anywhere has a different attitude toward life than their elsewhere. There is a strange accent, balms breezes, soulfull cooking, gentler people, and an absence of hurry in the daily pace of things. The cliche of the Italian grandmother stirring a pot of sauce probably started there. Just off the busy streets, you can hear and smell people living their lives in a way that's hidden in NYC. There's laundry hanging everywhere, and road side shrines to the Big Man upstairs that look more like a Vegas advert for an Elvis Prestly Museum. (lots of Christmas lights, silk flowers and religious action figures.)
I was in a little island paradice to the south called Syracusa that is the sunny perfect, forgotten plot that songs are written about. Blue waters, fishing boats, almont cookies that melt in your mouth..There was a plesent lack ouf tourists in Sicily and even more so in Syracusa. Lodgings were not as easy to come by but I made a good deal with grey haired B and B keeper for a night in a nice room to myself. We made our deal tracing the price into the bed spread with our index finger. She wrote "40" and I wrote "35" and it was done. Not a word of English spoken thank you very much! The other discount hotels were just not an option in the off-island spots. There is a point when you cross over from campy backpacker discount hostels to one-day's-rent-away-from-homeless-wino-hotel. You go from, "I hope the beds are comfy," to "Are those cigarette burns in the mattress? I wonder if someone ever died in here?" From, "I hope they're good coffee in the morning," to ,"I hope I wake up with both my kidneys!" So I chose to pay the extra few bucks.
I had some plates of pasta in Syracusa that I had to stop myself from eating too fast. Like when the plate gets to the table and you realize that you have'nt looked up or broken your concentration on the food for five minutes. One dish was Spagetti da Ricci (with baby shrimp and fresh wild sea urchin.) And the other was someting that translated into "Eat Fest" that was a spagetti with baby shrimp, cherry tomatoes, smoked sword fish, parsley, and crushed almonds. I wish I had more time to hang in Sicily! I got that recomendation from a guy named Enzo who had an anti-Bush poster in his wine shop. I stopped in, slagged off on Bush for a drink or two and he sent me to this amazing restaurant. Sicily.
This is the second draft of a piece that I wrote two days ago but lost it in the technical vortex of the internet.
But to bring it all back...I was in Sicily up untill a two days ago. I'm in Rome for the moment but more on that in a minute. Sicily is an island. Not just geographically but metaphorically as well. It's about 30 years behind the rest of Italy in terms of its modernization and it seems to live life on its own warped sense of time. It was lovely to be there to say the least. Palermo was a place of extreme contrasts in its feel as a town. Sweet and sour, old and new, light and dark, rich and poor. I spent two pretty rainy days there but still managed to get a few hours of sun here and there. The buildings in Palermo are like the town; layered and layered with wave after wave of styles of each succssive occupier. There is a distinct feeling of Muslim presence there, with the spices in the markets that are unique to the Sicily (cinnamon, cumin, fennel, corriander), there are Moorish domes that cluster the skyline behind rows of palm trees, and there is a contagious energy in the markets where the men chant the product and price down the alleys to attract business. I may have mentioned that I was buying bags of strawberries from a guy that was yelling, " Fragola...Fragola..Fragola...Un Kilo, Due Euro....," I spent alot of time walking up and down the street markets checking out all the piles of olives, oranges, fennel, cheeses, and salumi. No discussion of the Sicilian markets would be complete without the fish. The tables of ice were packed with the local daily catches which were always sword fish with the severed head displayed so that the blue-grey beak sticks three feet up in the air. Baby octopus, shrimp, bream, spiny lobster, all kinds of fresh sardeen and anchovy. They were all kept slick and fresh looking by the men wearing full length yellow rubber aprons who watered down the catch with garden buckets. The pastties are some of the nicest I've seen in italy so far. Everything seems to be made out of almond or pistachio paste and dusted with sugar.
Palermo's favorite street side snack is the boiled spleen sandwich. There are carts on most corners with steaming tubs of this most pungent meat simmering away in its juices. The sandwich itself is a sesame bun (they love their sesame seeds here too) with some meat piled on, and then some ricotta all wrapped in a paper napkin. It tastes like a liver sandwich with a few rubber bands thrown in for texture. As the song goes, when you're in Palermo huddled under a statue of Neptune, standing in a puddle in the rain, with your lips wrapped around a steaming spleen sandwich...that's amore.
Italy is the South of Europe, and Sicily is the South of Italy, and the South like anywhere has a different attitude toward life than their elsewhere. There is a strange accent, balms breezes, soulfull cooking, gentler people, and an absence of hurry in the daily pace of things. The cliche of the Italian grandmother stirring a pot of sauce probably started there. Just off the busy streets, you can hear and smell people living their lives in a way that's hidden in NYC. There's laundry hanging everywhere, and road side shrines to the Big Man upstairs that look more like a Vegas advert for an Elvis Prestly Museum. (lots of Christmas lights, silk flowers and religious action figures.)
I was in a little island paradice to the south called Syracusa that is the sunny perfect, forgotten plot that songs are written about. Blue waters, fishing boats, almont cookies that melt in your mouth..There was a plesent lack ouf tourists in Sicily and even more so in Syracusa. Lodgings were not as easy to come by but I made a good deal with grey haired B and B keeper for a night in a nice room to myself. We made our deal tracing the price into the bed spread with our index finger. She wrote "40" and I wrote "35" and it was done. Not a word of English spoken thank you very much! The other discount hotels were just not an option in the off-island spots. There is a point when you cross over from campy backpacker discount hostels to one-day's-rent-away-from-homeless-wino-hotel. You go from, "I hope the beds are comfy," to "Are those cigarette burns in the mattress? I wonder if someone ever died in here?" From, "I hope they're good coffee in the morning," to ,"I hope I wake up with both my kidneys!" So I chose to pay the extra few bucks.
I had some plates of pasta in Syracusa that I had to stop myself from eating too fast. Like when the plate gets to the table and you realize that you have'nt looked up or broken your concentration on the food for five minutes. One dish was Spagetti da Ricci (with baby shrimp and fresh wild sea urchin.) And the other was someting that translated into "Eat Fest" that was a spagetti with baby shrimp, cherry tomatoes, smoked sword fish, parsley, and crushed almonds. I wish I had more time to hang in Sicily! I got that recomendation from a guy named Enzo who had an anti-Bush poster in his wine shop. I stopped in, slagged off on Bush for a drink or two and he sent me to this amazing restaurant. Sicily.
posted by Vitamin D at
1:36 AM
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