We’ve been to Sicily three times now, so it seems unnecessary to say we love it. The landscape is overwhelmingly beautiful, the people are friendly and welcoming, and there’s history everywhere you look. I’ll be writing more about this wonderful island, but for now I just wanted to talk a bit about the food.
I was nervous before our first trip to Sicily, because I’m a vegetarian, and if you believe the travel books (as I once did) Sicilians put fish in everything. Worse, they eat things like octopus, squid, eels, anchovies, and snails. (That last sentence is true, but those foods are as avoidable in Sicily as they are anywhere else.) I ate pasta, pizza, cheese, salads, bread, fruit, and of course, more than my share of cannoli, gelato, and cassata. I never found myself having to order or eat something I didn’t want because the selection was limited. And every time I thought the food couldn’t possibly get any better, it did.
A couple of tips. When you order pizza, you get your own individual pie, and it comes unsliced. You can either cut it up yourself, or just fold it and eat the whole thing as if it were a giant sandwich. (I saw plenty of people doing both.)
Marinara sauce is made with shellfish, at least in some restaurants. I made the mistake of ordering linguine marinara in Palermo once, and was momentarily shocked when my dinner came covered with steamed mussels. I couldn’t eat it; in fact, I could barely look at it. The waitress was completely understanding and gracious (I’m not sure about the cook), and she quickly served me another plate of linguine without the seafood.
Many cities and towns have daily street markets, where residents and visitors go to buy fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, cheese, seafood, sauces, nuts, and a wide variety of household items, clothing, and gifts. If you’re looking for the colors, sounds, and aromas of Sicily, go to a street market. The food is fresh, local, and delicious.
Desserts. We have more than five hundred pictures from our three trips to Sicily, but I was surprised to discover that we didn’t have a single photo of pastry, gelato, cassata, cannoli, or any of the other amazing desserts we devoured every day. Then I realized, we always ate it before anyone had time to take out the camera. Trust me: if you’re a dessert person, Sicily is the place. Whether you’re in the big cities or the smaller towns, you’ll find pasticcerie (pastry shops) and gelaterie (ice cream shops) on almost every block. My favorite gelato flavors are pistachio, strawberry, coconut, banana, and stracciatella. (I also have five back-up flavors, just in case.)
Sicilians tend to have dinner late, so if you’re going to eat out, you should plan your day accordingly. Many restaurants don’t start serving until eight o’clock. But as with most other travel book rules, there are always exceptions. If you’re hungry in Sicily, you can always find something to eat. And it will be delizioso!
Mostly Bright Ideas 
Amiable Amiable
May 19, 2010
Proof that Sicilians are welcoming: as a vegetarian, you have been allowed on the island 3x to date. Bravo! Proof that my half-Sicilian husband loves me: I have not been served with divorce papers because I dislike calamari (and, with the exception of anchovies, all of the other “things” from the mare that you referenced above). I can see where you’d manage very well with the assortment of cheeses, veggies, and fruits from the market alone – all of those photos, and the lunch spread, are amazing! The colors, the variety, that cute little pizza, the olives! Of course, having been convinced in great part by you that I must visit Sicily before I die, I could go solely for the gelato. When my junior year of college in Firenze had come to an end, I spent my last day eating my way through my three favorite gelaterie, tearfully scooping every last bite of one of Italy’s greatest gifts to mankind. Thank you for your post! Ho fame! Can we have seconds?
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Marie M
May 21, 2010
Mmmm. Sounds like a great place to go. How would you describe the flavor stracciatella? I can’t even guess at what that means. Is it Italian for a fruit name?
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bronxboy55
May 21, 2010
The gelato flavor called stracciatella is a creamy white (vanilla?) with swirls of tiny chocolate bits. It comes from an Italian word that means torn to shreds, and is actually the name of several very different foods that have similar texture, including a soup and a cheese.
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Marie M
May 21, 2010
Sounds yummy–the gelato, anyway. Still trying to imagine soup with this texture–maybe along the lines of a thicker egg drop soup?
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bronxboy55
May 22, 2010
Maybe texture isn’t quite the right word. It may be more the appearance, or the action used to create the appearance. If you take one ingredient and tear it into small bits, then swirl it into another ingredient, you could call the result stracciatella — whether you’re making cake, bread, custard, cheese, soup, or something else. It’s also possible, now that we’ve gone so much farther into this, that I don’t know what I’m talking about, which is the feeling I’m starting to get. I think I’ll just back up right now and say that stracciatella gelato is delicious!
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Nonijo
November 10, 2010
We still laugh at the memory of trying to find out the flavor of that delicious gelato. Whenever we hear the word, we enjoy the memory of that poor man trying to figure out what we were asking. And the look on his face when we all discovered that Stracciatella was the flavor we were looking for. Good times, good memories. We need to do that again. Florida is a great place to visit in winter.
PS As you can see I’m looking at some of your past blogs.
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bronxboy55
November 10, 2010
Actually, I was trying to ask him how to say “What flavor is this?” in Italian. But he kept thinking I was asking him what flavor the gelato was that I was eating. “Stra-ccia-tel-la!”
It’s a nice surprise to see you here! And we’ll definitely talk about Florida.
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Margaret Reyes Dempsey
February 7, 2011
The photos almost made me weep. I need to finish my post about my trip to Italy this past October. It’s almost like my words could never do it justice. Do you know what I mean?
By the way, I love every food you named. Big surprise. And I adore Sicilian cassata, which is very different from what we get in the bakeries here.
I think I taught Taormina what take-out is. 😀
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bronxboy55
February 7, 2011
I know exactly what you mean, but I hope you’ll write it anyway. I’m sure it will be great reading.
Cassata is now my favorite dessert, but it varies quite a bit, depending on where you get it.
When were you in Taormina?
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Margaret Reyes Dempsey
February 8, 2011
I was there twice–1977 and 1996. I’m due for another visit.
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bronxboy55
February 8, 2011
I’d say long overdue.
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carldagostino
March 16, 2011
I am half Sicilian and half Roman. I like this type of post because I want some authenticity in my cooking. The old people, that first wave, are pretty much all gone now. I remember when I was little listening to the old women complain that there was not an Italian restaurant in America that knew how to make real Italian food. Especially meatballs. In the “old country” meat was expensive and beyond the pocket book of many. So they stretch the ground beef with bread and once you get a taste for it that way, yes the American stuff is junk. I have never been able to travel(I did get to the big mall a time or two) but some day I want to go there and to Israel to see the Christian shrines.
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bronxboy55
March 16, 2011
If you can manage it, a trip to Italy would be unforgettable. There are plenty of flights from Rome to Sicily, so a visit to both places is very feasible. The amazing thing about Sicilian food is how simple it is, and how delicious.
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Brown Sugar Britches
July 2, 2011
yum. i’ve not been outside of the united states. ever. but i have enjoyed some gelato and boy oh boy! it’s sinful. sinfully delicious spoonfuls of the most delicousness to ever be frozen. i’m sure what i had compares nothing to the real deal… i aspire. to travel and to enjoy the real food from the real places with the real flavors. i love your writing and i am enjoying them all… one-by-one.
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bronxboy55
July 20, 2011
I find it difficult to separate the deliciousness of the food itself and the deliciousness factor added by the setting and that feeling of being away from it all. The gelato you have in California may be just as good as that served in Italy. For me, the best dessert I can possibly have is the one I’m eating at the moment.
Thank you for being so nice, BSB, and for your ongoing encouragement. It means a lot.
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mcgulotta
June 23, 2012
I wish we were there and buy the fresh food at the market. Mmmmm.
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