One of my Sicilian mother's signature dishes is stuffed peppers. But unlike regular Italian stuffed peppers, she loads hers with veggies. It never occurred to me that her style was uniquely Sicilian until I stumbled on Ada Parisi's Sicilian stuffed peppers recipe.
She recently shared with me memories associated with this dish, what makes her stuffed peppers Sicilian, the recipe's key ingredients, and her serving suggestions.
What does this dish remind you of?
Stuffed peppers are a traditional Sicilian recipe, but I cherish the family version I inherited from my great-grandmother. A completely vegetarian version that was prepared at home every summer as soon as the peppers were in season.
What makes this recipe Sicilian?
The Sicilian characteristic is certainly the filling, which is not made with minced meat, as in the rest of Italy.
What are the key ingredients used in the Sicilian-style stuffed peppers?
The filling is made with a mixture of breadcrumbs, oil, parsley, capers, garlic, grated and chopped cheese. Many also add anchovies, olives, or some chopped tomatoes.
Why do you use breadcrumbs?
The use of breadcrumbs in fillings in Sicily is linked to the fact that peasant cuisine was a poor cuisine made of ingredients that farmers always had at home. Nothing was thrown away. Vegetables were stuffed with this old bread seasoned with oil, cheese, and aromatic herbs. Meat or fish were foods for the rich.
What do capers add to this dish?
Capers add a very interesting salty note and are typical of Sicilian cuisine (we produce capers in Pantelleria and Salina). Many use salted or oil-preserved anchovies instead of capers, a very common combination with peppers also in northern Italy.
If you're vegan or lactose intolerant, can you omit cheese?
Of course, you can omit the cheese and add a larger amount of aromatic herbs.
Do the types of peppers matter for this dish?
The most suitable peppers for this recipe are round peppers, usually red, green, or yellow. I think the red ones are the most suitable, but in terms of color, it is nice to use all three.
Are there any specific tips for ensuring the stuffed peppers turn out perfectly?
First, you must not spare the extra virgin olive oil because it is the oil that makes the filling soft and fluffy. Then, cook in the oven at a temperature that is not excessively high, 180 degrees Celsius maximum, so that the peppers cook without drying out.
How do you typically serve your stuffed peppers?
We usually serve them among the appetizers or as a side dish for meat or fish. In fact, since the filling is carbohydrate-based, they are also an excellent main dish if accompanied by a rich salad.
By 2021, the island had become Italy's second-largest durum wheat-producing region, with 343,500 hectares under cultivation and a production of 931,800 tons.
You may have seen durum on the back of a box of pasta. It's frequently coarsely ground into semolina, a common ingredient in Sicilian bread and pasta.
One of the more popular semolina pastas is cavatelli, also known as cavateddi. This Sicilian version of gnocchi is served with plain red or meaty sauce. I recently caught up with private chef and cooking instructor Antonella La Macchia to learn more about this specialty and what differentiates her cavatelli recipe from typical gnocchi.
What is your background?
I was born in Catania, Sicily, and live in Florence, Tuscany. I moved here 23 years ago because I married a Florentine, and I have been teaching cooking classes in Florence for more than 10 years now.
What is the difference between cavatelli and gnocchi?
It's funny. When people take the class, they usually talk about potatoes and gnocchi because they are the more traditional or famous.
If I talk with my mother, gnocchi are completely different. Our gnocchi in Sicily, cavatelli, are made with semolina and water. The dough is very chewy and has a nice consistency. Of course, the flavor is completely different because we have the semolina flour. Also, the sauce that they require is different. Most of the time, Sicilian gnocchi are served with meat sauce because they have this consistency and want a strong sauce.
The shape is different because when we make gnocchi, we use a tool called rigagnocchi. You use the board to make a little cavity that holds the sauce. That's the reason why they're called cavatelli.
Semolina pasta can also be a little bit trickier than regular pasta. The regular pasta, the pasta from the north—ravioli and tagliatelli—has the classic dough with flour and egg. When we talk about pasta from the south of Italy, from Puglia to Sicily, it's important to balance the right amount of water to obtain the right consistency. This shape is usually made by pushing the pasta on a wooden board with your hand or knife. If the consistency is not perfect, it won't be easy to have the shape of the pasta you want.
Once you have a good dough, you can make the cavatelli with your hands or use the rigagnocchi. It is important to get the right shape because, of course, if this pasta is thicker, it can be pretty chewy.
What makes this recipe Sicilian?
When I teach about pasta, I always say that through the pasta, we can see the difference between the countries. You can see easily that this country was divided for many years, and the food from the north and the south is very different.
When we talk about fresh pasta, the first difference that we can say is that most of the fresh pasta that we find in the north is made with white flour. What makes this pasta really Sicilian for me is the use of semolina and, of course, the sauce. We don't have butter and sage; ours is mostly red, so tomato-based.
What do you hope the readers will take away from this recipe?
What I like, and I always talk about this during my class, is that at the end of the day, the most important thing is when a recipe becomes yours. It makes the food real and, in a certain way, eternal.
When I was growing up, holiday gatherings with my Sicilian family meant that everyone brought a favorite dish to add to supper. In addition to giardiniera, bean and tomato salad, and pasta, we could always expect trays of Italian cookies. A favorite was the tetú, a dense, chewy chocolate cookie with a light glaze.
Traditionally served on All Saints' Day in Sicily, these so-called "sweets of the dead" are a hit any time of the year. Our family includes them on Christmas cookie platters, and they frequently show up on Sicilian wedding cookie tables.
I was thrilled to find a recipe for this classic Italian cookie on Alexa Peduzzi's Fooduzzi.com. Alexa's recipe is inspired by her Nana's. Her twist? They are plant-based.
Alexa and I discussed her background and the significance of the tetú (or, as Alexa says, "to to").
Tell me about your background. Where is your family from?
We're from all over the boot! One of my great-grandpas was from L'Aquila, my great-grandma was from Calabria, and I had some family up in Schignano on Lake Como.
What does your heritage mean to you?
When I was a kid, I actually thought everyone was Italian because celebrating that part of my heritage happened all of the time and just seemed so normal and universal.
I'm really proud to be Italian, largely because we're a big food family. So being Italian (to me and my family) means black olives on our fingers at dinnertime, homemade pasta swirled into savory sauces, and simple desserts like these to tos.
Walking into an Italian grocery store (like Penn Mac in the Strip District in Pittsburgh) is always the best sensory experience for me; the scent of cheese, olives, and oils smells like my childhood!
What are to tos, and how/when are they typically served?
At their core, to tos are chocolate cookies with a simple vanilla icing. They're crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. I think there's a similar version of these cookies floating around called "meatball cookies," which is very accurate given their look before they're iced.
I'm from Pittsburgh, and the "wedding cookie table" is a very important part of our culture here. So, I saw them a lot at weddings growing up. Now, we mostly have them at Christmas, and I look forward to them every single year.
What is the significance of this recipe for you?
These are, hands down, my favorite cookies.
Yes, they're delicious, but this recipe is one that I always consider "our family recipe." I've never really seen to tos anywhere else, but I always look forward to them at family gatherings.
To tos are a simple chocolate cookie, but they're so much more than that. When I bite into them, I'm always taken back to the weddings I attended, the birthday get-togethers we had, and the visits with family that included these cookies.
They're as much a memory as they are a recipe.
How is this recipe different from the traditional version?
My Nana's version of this recipe is very similar to mine; mine uses vegan butter instead of regular butter. I tried to keep my version as close to the original as possible, considering the original has been my favorite treat for over 30 years!
I'm not really sure that my Nana would have really understood my desire to make to tos plant-based, but making this recipe always makes me feel close to her, even with my tweaks.
What do you hope at-home cooks and bakers will take away from your recipes?
I hope they're able to take one of my recipes and say, "Wow, this tastes great, and it's plant-based," rather than something like, "This tastes great for a plant-based recipe."
I'm plant-based because I love animals, and I figure if I can satisfy my body with foods that don't require them, I should.
I don't believe that there's one universal way of eating for every person, but I hope my recipes show people who are interested in plant-based options how simple, tasty, and uncomplicated they can be.
What is your goal with Fooduzzi?
My goals have changed so much over the years! I started Fooduzzi almost 10 years ago, and when I first started, my goal was to take it full-time and work for myself.
That said, I soon realized that I'm a terrible boss for myself! So, it's very much a hobby and a hub where I share the recipes that I love at the moment. I'm not actively creating new recipes; I'm now sharing more of the recipes I've started making and truly love.
Stop. Before you toss those jack-o-lantern scraps, consider saving them for a classic Sicilian pumpkin recipe. Believed to have originated in Palermo's popular Vucciria market, zucca in agrodolce (sweet and sour pumpkin) is a simple seasonal side dish that's sure to impress your most discerning supper guests.
We chatted about her connection to Sicily, what inspired this dish, how to select the perfect pumpkin, and excellent zucca in agrodolce pairings.
Tell me about your background. What is your connection to Sicily?
My parents were English, and I was born in the UK and grew up in an area in South London where there were a lot of Italian families. I went to school with many Italian-descendant children, and their birthday parties and invitations to their homes were always so fascinating and fun. I just loved sitting around the big family table eating pizza, pasta, and gelato, receiving lots of Italian warmth and hospitality. As I grew up, I knew that I wanted to visit Italy. Whilst other children my age were filling scrapbooks with photos of their favorite pop stars, I would be dragging my parents to our local travel agent to pick up travel brochures so I could cut out the photos of Italy and create my own Italy travel brochure.
In 2005, I read a travel article in a fashion magazine about Taormina in Sicily. With my love of all things Italian and my husband's love of The Godfather movies, Sicily seemed like our kind of destination. So, after some research, I booked a weekend getaway to Taormina, and as soon as we saw the volcano Mount Etna from our airplane window, we knew we had already fallen in love with the island. Two years later, we bought our Sicilian home in Giardini Naxos, a seaside town nestled between the slopes of Etna, Taormina, and the Ionian Sea.
How did your life change?
Coming from London, we are used to a fast-paced life, and over the past 17 years, we have learned to live life the way the Sicilians do. We learned to shop more locally at our local butchers, fish shops, and bakeries instead of using supermarkets and buying our fruit and vegetables from markets. Our taste buds changed with the fresh produce we were buying.
We joined the evening passeggiata along our seafront with our dogs. In the beginning, we used to zoom along, overtaking the locals, but now we take our time like the Sicilians and maybe stop at a bar for an aperitif or coffee or sit on the seawall eating a gelato. A five-minute walk to the seafront can turn into an hour's walk with locals stopping to talk to us. In Sicily, we have made more friends than we ever have in London, and we have been adopted by many Sicilian families, who see us as one of them now.
What inspired you to share the recipe for Sicilian sweet and sour pumpkin?
In 2014, I started to write my blog, "White Almond Sicily," and a friend from London came to stay with us. It was his first visit to the island, and we discussed how not many English people visit Sicily or know much about its beauty, food, and culture. Thereafter, I started writing about our new life in Sicily, the places we visited, and the people we met. I decided to also share recipes for popular Sicilian dishes that our new Sicilian friends had made for us.
We now divide our time between London and Giardini Naxos, and my favorite seasons are spring and autumn when the island boasts an abundance of delicious fruit and vegetables. Autumn is a wonderful time of year to stay in Sicily with the grape harvest to make new wine, olives are harvested to make olive oil, trees are heavy with apples, prickly pears are in season, and there are food festivals that celebrate hazelnuts and walnuts. It is also the season for hearty meals like stews and risotto, with the most popular use being seasonal vegetables like pumpkins.
You will see pumpkins at markets or on the roadside piled up by local farmers on their three-wheeled Ape vehicles, a bit like what you see with watermelons in summer. I love Halloween, so I always like to carve a pumpkin into a lantern, which gives me the perfect excuse to use the leftover flesh to make Sicilian sweet and sour pumpkin.
Can you tell us more about the historical and cultural significance of this dish in Sicily?
Like a lot of vegetable dishes in Sicily, pumpkins were used in poor times to replace meat, and the pumpkin was used as an equivalent to liver. The dish is thought to have originated in Palermo in the famous Vucciria market.
The rich aristocratic families would buy expensive liver, which would be fried and marinated in a sweet and sour way and then garnished with fresh mint. The poor could not afford the meat, so instead, they bought slices of pumpkin, which was cheap, and cooked it in the same way.
The dish was known locally as o ficatu ri setti cannola (the liver of the seven taps), which refers to seven taps at the seven fountains located near the market where the street vendors selling the pumpkins would be daily.
Do you have any personal stories associated with making or eating sweet and sour pumpkin?
We usually drive from London to Sicily with our dogs, and after three days of traveling, on our first day back home in our Sicilian house, our neighbors always visit bearing gifts, usually food. It is quite often that we will return home and have a delivery from what we call "the lemon fairy" and find a bag full of lemons hooked onto the door knob of our front door. Last year, a neighbor gave us a crate of persimmons, which I made into a delicious jam, and of course, he was given a jar, much to his delight.
I can remember the father of one of our friends, who owns a big plot of land on Etna, arriving at our house with the biggest pumpkin I had ever seen. I could hardly carry it. Of course, I used it to carve a Halloween pumpkin and made a sweet and sour Pumpkin with the remains. There was so much that I was able to preserve it in empty jars to bring back home to London.
I first tried this dish in a Sicilian restaurant in London, which was owned at the time by Enzo Oliveri, a well-known Sicilian chef from Palermo who now lives in the UK. It was Enzo who first told me how to make the dish in a similar way to another popular Sicilian dish, caponata.
What tips do you have for selecting the best pumpkin for this recipe?
In Sicily, I always trust the vendor to choose the best pumpkin for me, but when in London, I always look for firm and smooth pumpkins that feel heavy for their size. Then, I know that there is plenty of flesh inside, and I avoid any pumpkins with cracks or bruises. We do not get pumpkins in London like those in Sicily; the ones in Sicily have a unique taste from being grown on fertile volcanic soil.
How do you balance the sweet and sour flavors in this dish to achieve the perfect taste?
I use one tablespoon of sugar and two tablespoons of vinegar for the agrodolce (sweet and sour) taste. Sicilians tend to use white vinegar for this dish, but I like to use red wine vinegar. It gives the pumpkin a ruby-colored hue that makes the dish look a bit more exotic and gleam like Sicilian jewels.
What other traditional Sicilian dishes would you suggest pairing with sweet and sour pumpkin?
In Sicily, this dish is usually regarded as a side dish or used as part of antipasti paired with other delicacies like caponata or melanzana parmigiana, together with local cured meats, cheeses, olives, and sun-dried tomatoes. As a side dish, we enjoy it with grilled meats or salsiccia, a Sicilian sausage made with coarsely chopped pork and usually containing fennel seeds.
Can you share any common mistakes to avoid when preparing this dish?
It is all about getting the balance of the sweet and sour correct. Too much vinegar and the dish can become acidic. Too much sugar will make it hard to savor all the other flavors. Always leave the ingredients to mingle. You also need to add finely chopped fresh mint to garnish, as this brings out the flavors like a tastebud explosion in your mouth. Mint is a very typical ingredient in Sicilian cuisine from when the island was under Arab rule.
What feedback have you received from readers who have tried this recipe?
This recipe is mostly viewed in autumn months, and most of my blog followers love that it is a lesser-known Sicilian dish to create and try. It is particularly great for children as all kids enjoy carving a Halloween pumpkin, so it is a great way to introduce this vegetable into their diet.
What do you hope readers take away from your White Almond recipes?
My philosophy is to share the delights of Sicily through its culture and food using my own experience of living on and traveling around the island. I love that I can share recipes that I have learned locally with readers, who can then recreate dishes that they have tasted whilst in Sicily when they return to their own home kitchens.
Sundays of my youth were spent with my Sicilian grandparents. We'd gather in the kitchen to enjoy Nonna's afternoon supper. And at the center of the table, we could always look forward to her fresh-baked bread. Typical of Sicily, this bread was made with semolina, coarsely ground durum flour. She'd roll her loaves in sesame seeds, which added depth to the already nutty flavor.
As a bread-baker myself, I have attempted to recreate Nonna's recipe, but apparently, I hadn't found the right recipe. My bread was too flat.
That was before I stumbled on a semolina bread recipe on Marcellina in Cucina. This pane Siciliano was gorgeous, golden, and looked just like Nonna's. I just had to reach out to blogger Marcella Cantatore to learn more.
Tell us about your background.
I'm the owner of Marcellina in Cucina and the second child of Italian immigrants Anna and Enzo. My mother, Anna, was from Reggio Calabria, Calabria, and my dad was from Piacenza, Emilia Romagna. I grew up in a traditional Italian immigrant family. We grew a lot of our food and cooked everything from scratch. I learned to cook by just watching my mother and father in the kitchen. There were no recipes, but I wanted to record our family recipes and those of others, so I started my blog.
How often do you travel to Italy, and have you been to Sicily?
I have traveled to Italy three times, and I plan another trip in the next year or two. I've been to Sicily, but not extensively. It's a beautiful place, and I will spend more time there next time.
What is your connection to this recipe?
This recipe is a traditional Sicilian bread but also very similar to the bread in my mother's hometown, Reggio Calabria. Reggio Calabria has many similarities to Sicily due to its proximity. At home, I wanted to recreate the bread I ate there, so I searched for recipes and tested them until I adapted this bread from Carol Field's book The Italian Baker.
Why semolina and why sesame seeds?
This is a traditional Sicilian bread that you'll find in all Sicilian bakeries and many southern Italian bakeries. Semolina is hardier and resistant to spoilage, so it was the flour used for bread for the common people who were poor and couldn't afford bread made with soft white flour. Semolina flour lends a beautiful yellow color and delicious flavor to the bread. Sesame seeds are much loved in Sicily and add extra flavor to bread. Plus, I adore sesame seeds!
Can you tell me about the shape of this bread and others?
The shape I have used in this recipe is called occhi, which means eyes and looks a little like eyeglasses. Another shape that you'll find this bread in is mafalda, which is like a snake zig-zagged back and forth, with the remaining length of dough laid over the top of the zig-zag. Sometimes, the dough is just zig-zagged without the extra dough laid over the top. In this case, it's known as scaletta or little ladder.
What is the connection to Santa Lucia?
Santa Lucia is the patron saint of eyes. The swirled S shape, which is a little like eyeglasses, is a traditional bread shape made to commemorate Santa Lucia (Saint Lucy). However, this is not the bread eaten on the Feast of Santa Lucia in Italy; it's a whole other story!
When is this bread served, and what are some popular Sicilian recipe pairings?
This bread can be served with any meal. Its flavor goes particularly well with cheese, sausage, and salami.
Tell me what you hope readers will take away from this recipe.
I hope readers learn a little about Italian and Sicilian culture and enjoy this deliciously different bread.
Autumn is pumpkin season, even in Sicily, where you can find several savory and sweet recipes. One of these is pizzuliato, a creamy pumpkin soup perfect for chilly fall evenings.
I caught up with Carmen Pricone of The Heirloom Chronicles blog, whose twist on the classic recipe was inspired by her Sicilian mother-in-law.
Tell us about your background.
I'm an Italo-Australian with a deep love for traditions and Italian food, and I am the author behind The Heirloom Chronicles blog. I'm passionate about cooking, gardening, and sharing recipes, along with the family memories that come with them.
The blog is really a blend of the regions that shaped me: my husband's family was from Sicily, my family is from Basilicata, and I was born in Piedmont before we moved to Australia in 1970—all tied together by the thread of tradition.
Many migrants to Australia, like my in-laws who arrived in the 50s and my family in the 70s from regions in southern Italy, brought with them many traditional recipes, all rooted in the seasons. If you had a patch of land in the garden, whether at the back or front, every square meter would be converted into a vegetable patch. Seasonal crops translated to hearty meals, most coming together ingeniously and without a written recipe.
What is your approach to recipes?
The idea of taking humble, seasonal ingredients and transforming them into tasty dishes perfectly captures my approach to cooking. I remember growing up spending hours in the garden with my parents. I had a fascination with what was planted after weeks of germination from seeds, knowing this would eventually form part of our meals.
Creating seasonal dishes using the fruits and vegetables we grew is a way of life that resonates with me and many of my readers. Today, I strive to live more sustainably by cultivating my own little garden using seeds saved from my parents' crops, learning from their way of preserving abundance, and being a strong advocate for locally sourced produce.
What influence has your mother-in-law had on your approach to recipes like this one?
While my parents inspired me to grow my own fruits and vegetables and keep meals simple, my mother-in-law taught me the art of ingredient composition. This comforting pumpkin soup recipe, called pizzuliati, uses basic ingredients, but the way they come together creates a rich blend of flavors. Each ingredient plays its role, elevating the others. Thought, care, and love went into making her dishes, and that is a part I will always treasure and try to replicate in my cooking.
What did this pumpkin soup represent for your husband's Sicilian family tradition?
Everything was prepared with love, likely around the kitchen table, with family and casual conversations. So when my late husband would request this dish, I knew it carried with it a deep sense of nostalgia. As you read through the recipe, there are snippets of memories told.
How have you modernized this recipe?
Pizzuliato is a Sicilian dialect name that comes from the word pizzico (pinch), which describes how the small granules are formed using semolina and water. When I'm time-poor, I have been known to use risoni pasta, which would be considered a more modern substitute. I have also made it using rice.
Are there regional variations of pumpkin soup in Italy?
Yes, Italy, including Sicily, has a number of regional variations of pumpkin soup, each with its own local twist and name. While pizzuliati is specific and not widely known, pumpkin soups are popular in different areas, often influenced by local ingredients and traditions. A few regional variations include:
Zuppa di Zucca Siciliana: In Sicily, pumpkin soup might feature local ingredients like wild fennel, almonds, and sometimes even seafood like shrimp, reflecting the island's Mediterranean influence. It often has a slightly sweet and savory flavor profile due to the combination of pumpkin and a touch of sugar or honey.
Zuppa di Zucca alla Toscana: In Tuscany, pumpkin soup is often combined with cannellini beans and rosemary, giving it an earthy and hearty quality. The soup is usually quite thick, with a drizzle of high-quality extra virgin olive oil.
Crema di Zucca alla Veneta: In the Veneto region, pumpkin soup tends to be creamy. It sometimes includes potatoes for extra thickness and Parmesan cheese for richness. It's often flavored with nutmeg or cinnamon for a warm, aromatic touch.
Minestra di Zucca: In Lombardy, the soup is more rustic and simple. It is often made with sautéed onions, garlic, and a bit of sage. It might include rice or even small pasta, making it a comforting dish for colder weather.
Each region of Italy puts its own spin on pumpkin soup, incorporating local produce, herbs, and traditional cooking methods that make the soups unique to that area. My mother-in-law's pumpkin soup is steeped in tradition, most likely from her town of Vittoria, in the province of Ragusa, Sicily.
What specific memories or stories do you associate with making or eating this soup with your family?
I never made this soup with my mother-in-law but learned her recipe through her recounts. This labor-of-love meal would have taken her a good part of her afternoon. It was a dish she knew we all cherished, including her young grandchildren at the time, and a weekly draw card during those winter months.
Can vegans or lactose-intolerant people omit the ricotta?
Yes, this dish can be modified to suit vegans or lactose-intolerant people. The ricotta does add creaminess, but it is just as flavourful without. I have known to process a cup of chickpeas, adding that creaminess and thickening the soup.
What do you recommend serving with the soup?
This pumpkin soup is a complete meal on its own due to its substance; however, some garlic or herbed crostini would complement it well.
What do you hope at-home cooks will take away from this recipe?
With a recipe like pizzuliati, I hope at-home cooks will take away an appreciation for simplicity and the deep flavors that can come from fresh, local ingredients. Traditional Italian recipes like this one are about respecting what's in season, highlighting the natural taste of each component, and enjoying the act of cooking itself.
Pizzuliati, and other rustic dishes like it, are less about following strict rules and more about connecting with the ingredients—adjusting seasoning to taste and adding your own twists based on what you have on hand. It's also about creating a meal that brings comfort and can be shared with loved ones, embodying the spirit of Italian home cooking: a celebration of food, family, and community.
A classic Italian soup, traditionally made from vegetable scraps and paired with beans and sometimes pasta, minestrone is the perfect first course for a Sicilian supper. There are a variety of ways to prepare this meal starter, but I was drawn to a recipe by Nadia Fazio of Mangia Bedda.
Nadia's blog reflects her quest to transcribe all of her mother's classic recipes. It has an even deeper meaning for her now that their mother has passed.
I sat down with Nadia to discuss her Sicilian-Canadian upbringing, the origin of Mangia Bedda (and its name), the right way to make minestrone, and the art of shelling your own beans.
What's your background?
I'm Italian-Canadian. Both my parents, however, were born in Sicily. They are actually from the same little town in Sicily (Naso in the province of Messina). My father emigrated to Canada in 1954. My mom, after they got married, came here and joined in 1959.
What was it like growing up Sicilian Canadian?
My siblings and I grew up with all the typical Italian traditions that they brought over from Sicily. It's interesting because it appears that when people came here from Sicily, it was sort of like time froze. They maintained the exact same traditions, with regard to food and family, that they practiced in Sicily.
I grew up with the typical Sicilian foods, all the traditional foods, all homemade from scratch, especially at this time of the year, all of the preserving, making the tomato sauce and all the different vegetables, the beans, and roasting the peppers and the eggplants and all of that.
I grew up surrounded by that, and I think my memories of my childhood and my parents are all, for the most part, actually centered around food, and I didn't appreciate it at the time. I really did not appreciate it.
I remember being dragged to a local farmers market in Montreal, and I found it so drab. I mean, I was a kid. It was boring, and it's one of my favorite places today.
Another memory that stands out is going to a farm outside of the city to get fresh milk (probably unpasteurized at the time) so that my mom could come home and make ricotta with it.
Tell us about your project, Mangia Bedda.
I started this blog almost 10 years ago as a little part-time hobby. It slowly grew and evolved, and I realized that my mission was really to transcribe all of my mom's recipes so that they wouldn't be lost. Most importantly, I wanted to write them down and get the correct quantities of ingredients because whenever you speak to an Italian nonna about how much flour goes into a recipe, it's as much as needed.
I started going to my mom's home to prepare one recipe at a time, watching her make it and stopping her at every step. "Wait, Mom, I've got to measure. I've got to weigh; I've got to write down how much it is." So that's what I did because I wanted to make sure that I had my favorite recipes. And that's even more dear to me now. I'm so grateful that I had the opportunity to do that.
I lost my mom a year ago, actually. So I am ever so grateful that I had that opportunity to do that because I have the recipes, not only for me, but I see how much they're appreciated by the types of comments and feedback I get from my readers, who are so happy that I took the time to document them. They share these memories of growing up with these recipes and are so happy that there's a place where they can get them.
Where does the name of your blog come from?
Bedda means my pretty one or beautiful one. And that's of significance to me because when I was little, I only met my nonna twice in my lifetime. She lived in Sicily, but I remember I was two years old when I met her, and apparently, I didn't want to eat. She always said those words to me, "Mangia, bedda," to coax me to eat.
What does this minestrone remind you of?
The first thing that comes to mind is memories of this time of year, specifically because this was when my mom made huge batches of minestrone, and she had all the vegetables from my dad's garden. So, if I look at all the ingredients and the recipe, the celery came from the garden. The tomatoes came from the garden. The zucchini and the green beans came from the garden. Oh, and some of the greens, I put in fresh spinach that's easily accessible, but you can use any greens in the garden.
I remember my mom making huge batches. She would freeze it before adding pasta and put it into freezer bags. She had a freezer full; we used to have the deep-chest freezer that we had in the garage at the time. She would take out a bag at a time and cook it up for us.
So, what exactly is minestrone?
It's an Italian vegetable and bean soup. The key component is that it's vegetables and beans. The beans are always present. Usually, they're Romano beans, but they could be white beans. It's just a medley of vegetables cooked down with these beans. There's a tomato base, and in my mom's case, it was always fresh tomatoes from the garden.
Usually, pasta is added to it as well. It's usually a small shape, like a ditalini. It could be small shells or elbow macaroni. Another typical addition would be taking spaghetti and breaking it up into small pieces. We call this spaghetti "sminuzzati." That was very, very common. In fact, sometimes, my mom might've even mixed pasta.
How do you flavor your minestrone?
Most minestrone soups are made with plain water, which is the classic way. But you could use chicken stock or vegetable broth if you want.
The herbs are also important—fresh basil, parsley, and thyme. You could add flavor with bay leaves. In just about any soup, I always add a couple of bay leaves.
I also add Parmesan rind. I think that makes such a big difference. If you want to stick to using plain water and not some kind of broth, just throw in a Parmesan rind, and I think it's fantastic. It gives a lot of flavor. And, of course, I always serve it with Parmesan cheese. Having minestrone or anything with pasta without cheese is hard for me.
Another thing you could add just before serving is a nice drizzle of olive oil. Olive oil on top adds tons of flavor.
What did your mother add that was unique to this recipe?
In our house, it was always made with freshly picked vegetables from our garden because, as I said, my mom made large batches. At this time of year, my parents often headed out to local farms and picked their own vegetables to supplement what we had. We could get more tomatoes, more zucchini, and so on.
I should add that the beans used were not dried beans that you just bought and soaked from the grocery store. They would always go out and get fresh beans. I actually did this recently. I went to a local farmers market and got a huge 20-pound bag of beans in their pods.
There was a lot of time spent shelling these beans at this time of year. They were the beans that we shelled ourselves. She also froze bags full of these beans to make pasta fagioli as well during the winter months.
What do you get out of that experience of shelling your own beans?
Oh, it connects me to my mom. When I was a kid, I was always trying to find a way to get away from these tasks. And my mom didn't force me. She let me go out and play and wouldn't hold me to these tasks. But for the last few years, I made sure to head out with my mom every year to get those beans. So we spent time the last few years sitting here, actually in my backyard, bonding while we were shelling the beans and chitchatting and talking about family and so on. So it's really special. I'm glad that I had the opportunity to do that. And now I do that with my husband and my daughter. It's just continuing that tradition.
What do you hope readers will take away from your recipe?
What I hope readers will take away is a few things. I think, first of all, the importance of preparing a simple, healthy meal from scratch with fresh ingredients for themselves and their family. I want to show them that it's really not that difficult to do so. Also, the importance of preserving family food traditions and passing them on to the next generation.
It was late afternoon when our bus rolled into Catania. After checking into our hotel, we wandered over to a cafe across the street, which proudly advertised "Sicilian Bruschetta."
My Sicilian family never served bruschetta. Growing up in Wisconsin, it was just something I'd find at a hip trattoria. So I assumed this menu item was geared toward American tourists, who pronounce it "broo-shetta" instead of the Italian "broo-sketta."
Still, I was intrigued. What made this bruschetta Sicilian?
We ordered a plate, and it was delightful: sweet Sicilian tomatoes, fresh basil, crunchy caper berries, roasted garlic, and just the right amount of olive oil and vinegar. It was a celebration of Sicilian culture on crunchy, toasted bread.
But I wondered. Was bruschetta really Italian? Where did it come from?
For one thing, it probably didn't originate in Sicily. There are some who say that the Etruscans invented bruschetta; it was a way of dressing stale, saltless bread. Or perhaps it was the Ancient Romans. Either way, the appetizer has likely existed nearly as long as olive oil, according to the late James Beard Foundation Lifetime Achievement winner and Italian cooking writer Marcella Hazan, who wrote about bruschetta in The Classic Italian Cookbook. As for the name, she explained, "bruschetta comes from bruscare, which means 'to roast over coals.'"
I recently stumbled on a YouTube video of another Sicilian bruschetta recipe. Produced by Francesco Elia, aka Tortellino, this recipe starts with good-quality bread: a fresh-baked pane nero di Castelvetrano loaf made from tumminia durum, which, like bruschetta, has ties to Ancient Rome. According to Francesco, this was also the go-to bread during World War II when other flours were harder to come by.
Francesco mixes his toppings—tomato, basil, garlic, salt, and pepper—with extra virgin olive oil and vinegar. He lets the mixture sit and marinate for several minutes to let the flavors blend. During that time, he bakes the slices until the edges are golden but not too crispy.
I contacted Francesco, a Sicilian born in Catania who now lives in the United Kingdom, to chat about this popular antipasti offering.
What is Sicilian bruschetta?
It can be as simple as olive oil, oregano, and pepper or as sophisticated as looking almost like a pizza. It doesn't really matter. But the fundamental basis is the way you cook the bread.
As long as the olive oil is good, especially if it's new, that is a form of bruschetta. You can have hot bread, bread under the grill, or sometimes even bread on the barbecue. You get a lovely charcoal and smoky flavor.
People add oregano, for example, to give a little bit of a pizza flavor, along with garlic, tomatoes, and mozzarella. It's a bit like a pizza to an extent.
I also included some balsamic drizzle in my recipe, which is incredibly tasty. I did that because that's what I was used to doing here in Sicily. So I'm calling it a Sicilian bruschetta because that's how we used to eat in my house. It's generally an appetizer as well. It's a form of a starter.
You can dip it with olives and sun-dried tomatoes on the side. And that is more cultural nowadays, of course. But in the past, it was very much about survival because it was something you could do very easily, and you could get by just by eating bread, olive oil, and tomatoes.
Is there a proper way to prepare the basil?
I think basil is okay as long as you don't cook it. Basil is an incredible herb. I always put it at the end of my dishes. If it's a hot ragù, for example, you will see me adding the basil at the end because it releases lots of flavors. I do that with most of my herbs.
It doesn't matter if you crush it, chop it with a knife, or do it with your hands. People say that if you chop with a knife, it loses its properties. I think it's rubbish. Personally, it's so minimal. The whole thing doesn't matter. The most important thing is to leave it to marinade because if you leave it for 20 minutes or 30 minutes to marinade with the olive oil, you will see that it will release its lovely flavors and taste incredible. That is an ingredient that is not in the original bruschetta. It is part of the evolution of bruschetta because basil obviously goes really well with most things, especially with tomatoes.
How do you ensure that your bread will be crispy rather than soggy when adding the toppings?
What I do is I put mine under the grill, and I do not put the mix until I'm ready to eat it. Generally, I tend to serve it hot. So if I am entertaining, for example, and I've got guests coming, I will do the bruschetta bread under the grill and then call everybody at the table. They sit at the table, and I'll get it out of the oven, and it's hot and crispy. Then, I'll have the little pot of my marinade in the middle. Then people can help themselves and then eat it straight away. And because between putting it on the bread and eating, it's pretty much a couple of minutes, it stays crispy. However, if you were to do it earlier and leave it on the bread, it would get soggy because the bread would absorb the olive oil. It will taste okay but not the same because you will lose the crunchiness. So, if you want to retain the crunchiness between spreading the marinade and eating it, just a few seconds.
What is the traditional serving of bruschetta?
There isn't one really. I think in Sicily, you have the bread in the middle of the table, and you help yourselves. That is generally how food is consumed in Sicily. It's more about the warmth and the family fun of fitting together rather than the etiquette of having to have it on a plate that becomes very un-Sicilian, so to say. I'm sure some people do that, but it's not how people generally eat in a household; in a family, you put the food in the middle of the table, and people help themselves.
What makes a recipe Sicilian?
What makes it really Sicilian is ingenuity and making it do with what you have. Sicilians are very good at using their imagination to make anything they have in the fridge. That is why Sicilians have come up with so many different recipes: because their imagination is really great, and from very little, they can make something very, very big. And the best thing is that Sicilian food is the simplest food. And that's why bruschetta is so great because it's very, very simple. You will find that even the most acclaimed pasta dishes in Sicily have only a few ingredients but are incredibly delicious. The same applies to a lot of pasta, for example. There are only a few ingredients, maybe three, four, or five.
The reason is that the fewer ingredients you have, the more you can taste what the meal is about. And so if it's about the mozzarella, then you can taste the mozzarella. If it's about the tomato in a recipe, then you taste the tomato.
The true Italian and Sicilian dish is simple cuisine where you can eat something, identify what is in it, and appreciate a blend of flavors without something being overpowering. A lot of Sicilian food also has garlic, but I will only put one little clove because I don't want it to be overpowering.
And that is where Sicilians are good at making something work from very, very little.
Olive oil may be a staple in Italian cooking, but baking with olive oil has become popular in recent years.
Sicilian grandmothers are likely shaking their heads. After all, Mediterranean people have long used olive oil as a fat for sweet and savory recipes. It's been used to prepare food since at least the 4th century B.C.
Baking with olive oil adds moisture and can heighten the flavor of baked goods. It's also better for your heart, says the American Heart Association, which recommends choosing healthier fats like olive oil over saturated fats like butter to lower your cardiovascular risk.
Stephanie's father hails from the town of Cattolica Eraclea in the Province of Agrigento. Being half Sicilian has influenced her love for citrus fruits, which she says pair nicely with olive oil when baking.
We chatted about her lovely cake recipe, its inspiration, and how baking with olive oil affects texture and taste.
What inspired your Sicilian citrus olive oil cake?
It's actually a combination of different recipes I found online. I was attracted to it because you can add whatever citrus you want. I like to add a combination of orange and lemon. And then, in my zest, I'll sometimes put in a little bit of lime because lime has a different flavor. It takes you in a different direction. And it looks pretty in the glaze when you have a little fleck of green along with the orange and the yellow. The great thing about any olive oil cake is that not only does olive oil go extremely well with citrus, but it's also a cake that remains moist for a very long time.
Why is olive oil used in some Sicilian baking?
They had many olive groves there and just used what they had. They weren't using much animal fat, at least in my dad's family, because they ate vegetables most of the time. They were eating more peasant food. So it was lots of vegetables, olive oil, whatever was available.
How does olive oil affect texture and moisture?
It is a little more dense, but in a pleasant way. It is more moist and less crumbly than a butter cake or a cake. And it holds the moisture for days. It'll be fresh for much longer than a traditional cake.
How does olive oil affect the taste compared to vegetable or canola oil?
Canola keeps things neutral. But in a cake with citrus, you don't mind a little bit of flavor, but you still need to be careful what olive oil you choose.
I like to choose one with a milder flavor. I don't choose the ones that are very full-bodied, thick, and peppery. I stay away from those, even for texture, because if your olive oil is too thick and heavy, it will bring down the cake. Olive oil cakes are already a little flatter, in my experience.
I use Tunisian olive oil. It's not Italian olive oil, but it is the best because it has the olive oil flavor without being overpowering or too heavy.
What do you hope at-home bakers will take away from your recipe?
I want them to appreciate the flavor of the olive oil in conjunction with the other ingredients, especially citrus. I have to say that the flavor combination is just perfect. Again, one of the benefits of having that moisture is that it has a prolonged shelf life.
I know that it's not really used in traditional baking. It's more of a European thing, and I hope people start using it more in baking.
An essential ingredient in many Sicilian recipes, the humble-looking caper packs a hefty dose of umami in a compact package. Typically found jarred and floating in brine in the U.S., these grayish-green shriveled-up buds are harvested from the Capparis spinosa bush (also called Flinders rose), a perennial plant with fleshy, rounded leaves and white or pinkish-white flowers. Producers also sell caper berries, the plant's large seed pods, and caper leaves.
To learn more about capers, I caught up with food/wine travel consultant, private chef, and writer Linda Sarris (aka @TheCheekyChef). Linda leads frequent tours to Sicily's island of Pantelleria. There participants get a first-hand look at caper production and even visit a caper museum. Linda also shared her favorite caper recipe: caponata.
What is your background?
I'm a Greek American who moved from New York City to Sicily. I've been living full-time in Palermo for about eight years.
I started a food and wine travel company here because I was working as a private chef. And then, when I moved to Sicily, I had to reinvent myself a little bit. Not so much private cheffing work here, especially for an American, but I've written two travel guidebooks for Moon Guides, which is part of Hachette. And so I write about travel in Sicily and food. I organize some week-long trips and retreats throughout the year, usually in Sicily in the Aeolian Islands in the summertime and Pantelleria, usually in spring and fall. I also do a market tour in Palermo. So, lots of different things, but always food- and wine-travel related.
What drew you to Sicily?
I ended up here. I got a scholarship to work in Sicily after attending a cooking school in New York, and then I just fell in love with the place. So, I came here in 2011 and have been studying Sicilian food since then.
Let's talk about capers. What is your interest in the plant?
I like meeting farmers or producers and learning about the products we use in cooking here. As I'm working in tourism, I want to be able to talk about the culinary culture here. I need to know what the items are, how they're made, and how they're grown.
I think the plants are incredible, and you see a lot of them in the places where I often travel for work. So, in the Aeolian Islands, Salina is a famous place for its capers, followed by Pantelleria, the island off the coast of Trapani. So those are the two most famous, although you do see them growing around a lot of the Mediterranean areas.
And then, producer-wise, I've met a lot of people who just cure them at home for their own use. And I've always worked closely with La Nicchia, which is a big producer in Pantelleria. They have always been at the head of developing new and caper-related products. They were probably the first ones ever to sell caper leaves in a jar. They do freeze-dried capers and caper powder. They sell seeds. They're always kind of innovating with new things they can do.
They opened a caper museum in Pantelleria. When I bring guests there, we visit the museum, do tastings, and learn about the process because capers were such a big business for that island.
And so I've always been excited about the plant and how we use it in cooking. It's always one of the main things people bring back from Sicily because it's such a specialty ingredient, travels well, isn't super expensive, and is better than what they might find at home.
What exactly is a caper?
The part that we eat as the caper is the unopened bud of the flower of the plant. It's a really incredible plant. They are pruned when you're cultivating them, but usually, they grow wild in the cracks of the road and come out of walls.
The plants that are actually thriving the most are the ones that are not cultivated and planted by people. It's really like a bush but has these long crawling vines. And the cool thing is that the season is really long, so the more you pick them, the more they'll produce. And you can actually pick the buds that are the capers from April until almost September or October.
The plant produces a lot. And so we usually sell here in Sicily, two different sizes, really tiny ones, and kind of a bigger one that's almost ready to open up into the flower. You'll see the whole progression of how it grows just on one vine, which is kind of cool. So you'll see the little buds in the leaves, bigger buds, and flowers. Once the flower opens up, the fruit of the caper grows out of the flower. And in English, we call it a caper berry or, in the Sicilian dialect, cucunci. It looks like an olive on a cherry stem. That's the fruit. And that's where all the seeds are. So what usually happens is birds eat that, travel around, and make new plants with the seed.
If you don't pick the bud, it opens to the flower. If you remove the flower, it goes back to making buds. But if you let the flower open, fruit comes out. It usually depends on what product you want, how quickly you pick it, and what level you let it develop.
How are capers typically prepared?
What we eat is not just straight off the plant. It has to be preserved, and usually, that involves sort of pickling it. So, either in a brine or a saltwater pickle or just packed in sea salt, which is what most people in Sicily do. It's usually just covering them with salt, rotating the batches until they lose some of their bitterness, and removing the liquid that comes out. Eventually, they could be preserved for eating, but you still have to soak them before you eat the ones packed in salt.
Most people here preserve and save and eat the buds of the flowers, the caper, and the berry. More recently, some companies have been curing the leaves as well. It's not as common. Maybe you would see that in someone's house, but that's not a very common thing you'd find in a store. But the same thing is packed into salt and maybe put under vinegar or oil in a jar.
Why are capers an important part of Sicilian cuisine?
I think they represent the earthy and even bitter and salty flavors that people like here. Capers grow wild and can be foraged food, so maybe that's why they became so popular. It was something people could pick without having to buy ingredients like that. We use them in so many different ways here, but I don't think just adding a caper makes a dish Sicilian.
How are capers used?
What's nice is that they can be used in everything—vegetable dishes, meat, and fish. And now we start to see them more in desserts. In Pantelleria, a few gelaterias make chocolate caper and oregano gelato. Then, on Salina, they do candied capers, which I don't see anywhere except on Salina, and that's really delicious. They put them with cannoli instead of chocolate chips at the end. It looks like a chocolate chip, but it's a candied caper.
People think the flavor of caper is salty, but it's only salty because you have to process it that way. But the ones in Pantelleria are very earthy and floral, so you can have capers in a dessert because it's not necessarily salty. It's caper flavor. It's not salt.
They're very versatile. We use them in a ton of recipes. They're a staple pantry item that most families have at their house. Most people will cure them for themselves.
What are your favorite caper dishes?
I like caper pesto because you can really taste the flavor. When you're going to use the capers in larger quantities, you do have to soak them, not just sprinkle them through a dish.
Capers tend to be in every single tomato salad. And in other parts of the Mediterranean, it's a staple—the tomato salad with capers in it. In Pantelleria, they have a typical salad made with potatoes, oregano, olives, and capers. It's in caponata, which is one of the most famous dishes of Sicily.
I like experimenting with some of the new things like caper powder. Caper leaves are a really beautiful way to apply garnish on top of fish. The seeds are interesting, and the caper berries are, too. They're beautiful as a little snack on a charcuterie platter. But they're really nice in cocktails, too, as a garnish instead of an olive in a martini or gin and tonic.
How do you use caper powder?
I put it on roasted vegetable dishes, such as pumpkin or eggplant, and I use it on fish as well, just as a little sprinkle. Depending on how you make it, it's kind of earthy and a little bit salty.
When you tour caper farms, what do you hope participants take away?
That there is a lot of work. One of the things that makes it more expensive is that they're all picked by hand. They're picked in the warmest months of the year, so spring through summer. The people who pick them, too, have to pick them while kind of crouching down. So it's physical work. And usually, they get paid per kilo that they pick. Historically, it has not been a great job to have because it's a lot of work and paid very little. But that's also why the little capers cost more than the big ones. It's more work to pick them; even if they're not priced by weight, they're priced by quantity.
If you step on the branches, caper plants stop producing. It kind of grows out from the root like little spider legs on the ground, like a starburst. And the people have to pick them with their legs spread out, and they're leaning over and reaching. It's just physically a little difficult to pick.
That's why it's harder to cultivate them yourself. Because once you put people in the field on top of them, the plant's not willing to give you as much.
Caper resources
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Capers from the Sicilian island of Pantelleria can be shipped to your door. Buy them from Linda's favorite Italian food importer, GUSTIAMO, and enjoy 10% off of your entire purchase with the discount code: cheekychef
Linda's favorite caper recipe: caponata
The noble dish was originally made with a fish called capone (no relation to Al), a small type of mahi-mahi, which gives it the now outdated name caponata. As many Sicilian dishes evolved and were modified for the masses, they changed to cheaper peasant dishes that typically used eggplant. There are variations of this recipe from town to town, from family to family, and sometimes it is made with artichokes in the springtime instead of eggplant, red pumpkin in winter, or even with apples.
My recipe is adapted from cooking with my mentor Fabrizia Lanza, the research of eating every version of caponata in sight, and other tips and tricks I've picked up along the way.
I snuck in a few bits of chocolate to thicken up the sauce as an homage to the tradition of chocolate-making in southeastern Sicily in the town of Modica. In the province of Trapani, it is often topped with toasted almonds, and the tomato is optional. The secret is cooking each ingredient separately and then mixing them together in the end to marry all of the flavors.
INGREDIENTS
1 small red onion, sliced
1 eggplant (dark black/purple Italian aubergine, which is oblong or teardrop-shaped) cut into 1-inch cubes
2 stalks of celery, sliced into small bite-sized pieces
3T. extra virgin olive oil
1/4c. red wine vinegar
2T cane sugar
1t high-quality tomato paste (estratto in italiano)
1T capers packed in salt (the best ones come from the Sicilian islands of Pantelleria or Salina), soaked in warm water, then squeezed dry
2T. unsweetened chocolate, chopped into small pieces to easily melt down
black pepper
vegetable oil to deep fry
sea salt to taste if needed
RECIPE (serves 5)
Blanch the chopped celery in heavily salted boiling water (without a lid) until bright green but still crunchy; strain out and shock in ice water before setting them aside for later.
Deep fry the eggplant cubes until they are dark brown (not burned, but much more than just golden). Allow the eggplant to float on the oil, and when they are finished frying, blot them on a few layers of paper towel to absorb the extra oil. Frying the eggplant helps it keep its shape and not turn your caponata into a mushy pâté.
In a shallow pan, sauté the red onion with some EVOO on medium-low heat until softened.
Add the red wine vinegar, sugar, and tomato estratto to pickle the onions and create a thick agrodolce sweet-and-sour sauce. Add the pelati, give it a stir, and simmer over low heat for 10 minutes.
Season with black pepper, but do not add salt.
Throw in a few chocolate bits (this is my secret) and let them melt into the sauce to give it some creaminess.
When cooled down, toss the fried eggplant in a large bowl with the sweet-and-sour onion/tomato mixture, adding the prepped capers and olives (these two ingredients should never be heated).
At the last moment, mix in the celery to keep its green color.
Check seasoning and add additional sea salt if necessary.
The olives and capers can both bring additional salt to this dish, so be careful with your seasoning.
Serve as a room-temperature side dish or on toasted bread as an appetizer. Caponata will taste even better the next day.
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A symbol of the city of Catania and typical of Sicilian cuisine, pasta alla Norma is the perfect eggplant dish. The recipe is simple, marrying tomato and eggplant with basil, garlic, and sometimes red pepper flakes. It's bound to convert eggplant haters to aubergine aficionados.
She took time out to share the history of pasta alla Norma, how to prepare eggplant, and what she hopes you'll take away from her plant-based, protein-packed aubergine recipe.
Tell us about your background. Where is your Italian family from?
The Italian side of my family is from Castelemare di Stabia, a bayside town outside Naples. They came from the poor side of town, as most of our ancestors did. My nonna, Elena Cordasco, was the youngest of seventeen (yup, seventeen). They came to America in groups and she was in the last group at 13 years old.
My nonno, who I adored, Girardo Stabile, was one of seven children and came to the U.S. when he was 16. They met when my nonna was 16, and they didn't know each other in Italy, even though they were from the same town. They married and had three children: my mother and her sister and brother.
We were always with my nonni. They lived either upstairs or next door, so they were a constant in my life, as were my nonna's nine sisters. I loved to be with them and my mother in the kitchen. My family always yelled as a way to communicate, but I noticed in the kitchen that they sang, laughed, and worked symphonically together smoothly, with no issues. That was what I wanted.
Describe your experiences in Sicily. What left a lasting impression?
My husband is Sicilian on both sides of his family, as far back as he can trace, so our experiences there often revolve around family. His aunts and cousins are all amazing cooks. I guess the most lasting impression is that the food in Sicily is pure magic. The simplest ingredients, cooked fresh with great olive oil, create feast after feast. I was not a big fan of eggplant (I know it's blasphemous) until I had it cooked for me in Sicily. The tomatoes are little pieces of heaven, and the oil is like gold.
Why didn't you like eggplant, and what changed that?
As a kid, my Neopolitan family used eggplant all the time, and I just did not care for the texture of it. When I traveled to Sicily and saw and tasted what they did with eggplant, my mind was changed, and I fell in love with it.
What is the history of pasta alla Norma?
It was named in honor of the native of Catania, Vincenzo Bellini, the composer of the opera Norma. It is said that the Italian writer Nino Martoglio exclaimed, "This is a real 'Norma!'" meaning a masterpiece (like the opera) when he tasted the dish. However, the name was not dedicated to this dish until decades after Martoglio's death.
Where did you encounter the best pasta alla Norma dish?
Ah, this makes me laugh, as I think the best Norma is mine! I add red lentils to the sauce to make it thick and rich-tasting, and I love it. That said, my husband's late Aunt Pina made a great Norma. There was just something about the way she cooked that lent a delicacy to this hearty dish.
What inspired you to create your particular version of pasta alla Norma?
I wanted to make the sauce thick and rich, and of course, we wanted to add protein, as we are both active. Since red lentils break down easily, they were the perfect solution.
How do you ensure the eggplant remains tender and not too oily when cooking?
I soak my eggplant in salted water and rinse it well before cooking. This not only removes the alkaloid "solanine," making the eggplant easier to digest, but it also makes it more porous, so you don't need to bathe it in oil as you cook, and it still comes out richly flavored.
What do you hope readers will take away from this dish?
I would like people to realize that you can, in fact, make a perfect pasta dish…one that is good for you, delicious, and gives you all the nutrition you need. You can break with tradition and create a new dish that honors tradition as well.
Late summer to early fall was harvest season for my Sicilian grandfather's garden, where he grew, among other things, five-foot-long cucuzzi (also known as snake squash or bottle gourd) with seeds from Palermo. He'd bring it in for my grandmother, along with some of the leaves they called tenerumi, and she'd cook both in soups and stews.
You won't find cucuzza in a supermarket. Most cucuzza cooks grow it themselves. I recently spotted cucuzzi hanging from a fence near my home in the San Fernando Valley.
But every so often, this Sicilian specialty makes an appearance at farmers markets. That's where Northern California food storyteller Simona Carini encountered her first U.S.-grown cucuzza, a squash she'd only previously seen in Sicily.
Simona bought that cucuzza along with its leaves and created her own recipe, cucuzza e tenerumi al pomodoro. She shared with me the story behind the recipe and what she hopes readers will take away from her blog.
Tell me about your background.
I was born and grew up in Perugia, Central Italy, where I spent the first half of my life. I went to school there, my friends are there, and my family is there. At age 30ish, I moved to Northern California. My husband is American.
My last name is Sicilian. Carini is an ancient town not far from Palermo. However, my immediate family is not from Sicily. On both my mom's and my father's sides, our family is from Lazio, about 40 miles north of Rome, although my maternal grandmother was from Croatia, from Split.
When did you first encounter tenerumi and cucuzzi?
So it was 1980, which historically, for Italy, was a very hard summer. In June, a passenger plane was shot down over the island of Ustica. And shortly after that, there was a bomb in the city of Bologna. That was the year I flew for the first time.
We spent a couple of weeks there in this little town not far from Carini, which is called Villagrazia di Carini. And why there? It's because three of my classmates from elementary school were originally from Sicily. And I guess their uncle had a house there. We were basically 17 or 18; there were seven of us. And we hopped on a plane. It was my first flight, and we spent two weeks there. So that was the first time I had tenerumi.
We weren't really cooking, but we were in this small community, mostly of locals. We were not in a tourist place, so they kind of took pity on us because we were without anybody. And so I remember this neighbor bringing over pasta with tenerumi. I asked what it was, and I was told it was the leaves of young zucchini, but that was it.
Fast-forward. In 2007, I went back to Sicily with my husband, and we stayed in Palermo. We went to the market, and finally, I saw the cucuzza with the tenerumi. However, at the time, we were staying in hotels, so I couldn't really cook anything, but I took pictures.
So, for the first experience, we had the kitchen, but we weren't cooking, and for the second, I was cooking, but I didn't have a kitchen.
Then, in 2019, we were living in Berkeley, and I used to go to the farmers market on Saturday morning. I got there, and it was really funny because there was this group of people crowding around something. And this something was actually cucuzza and tenerumi.
They had never seen it. And one of the farm helpers was explaining.
The cucuzza had been harvested young, so it was shorter, but I bought it, and people were looking at me like, "How are you going to cook it?"
I was like, well, I know in Sicily they make pasta, they make soup. I developed my recipe mostly because I didn't want to make soup. I wasn't interested in trying to make pasta, so I wanted to cook it as vegetables. And so I basically put together what I had—the tenerumi and the cucuzza, tomato from the farmers market, and onion. So that's how I kind of developed the recipe.
What is the history of the cucuzza?
The thing about the cucuzza is that this plant actually came from Africa. It's been in Europe for a lot longer than zucchini. Then zucchini kind of took over.
Can you speak to the idea of consuming the whole plant?
This idea just speaks to me. It's a little bit like the tradition we have in Italy of using everything.
What do you hope that at-home cooks will take away from this recipe and your work?
Things don't have to be complicated, particularly Sicilian cooking. I mean, look at desserts, for example. Sicily has quintessentially decadent desserts if you think of cassata and all that kind of stuff. But the food itself is very simple. They cook fresh fish, they have vegetables, they have fruit, they make wonderful bread. And so I really try to make it so that people are less worried about the end result or if it fits some specific idea or if it is authentic.
The whole thing about authenticity is very difficult because if we look at the history of migration from Italy, people left because they were starving. I mean, not everyone, but there was an enormous amount of poverty. They came from Sicily or, in general, southern Italy; they arrived in New Jersey or New York.
I remember a friend of mine told me that she could always tell an Italian family because, in the winter, they would wrap up their fig tree. And I understand that everybody has fig trees in Italy; they don't need any care, and the fruit is good. But if you live in New Jersey or New York, you have to be careful about the winter. So what happened is that people had to adapt because they just didn't have the ingredients. So, already, to me, authenticity is not the right way to look at this. It is adaptability, which is how these people try to hold on to their traditions in a place that is completely foreign. And that's beautiful.
At the back of my Sicilian grandfather's impressive rose and vegetable garden, there stood a cage where, at the end of summer and early autumn, you would find enormous squashes hanging from the trellised roof. Nonno would pick these sometimes five-foot-long fruits, called cucuzzi, and bring them in for Nonna to prepare in a stew.
Marcella and I sat down to chat about her Great American Recipe experience and the Sicilian art of growing and cooking cucuzzi.
What is your background?
My parents were both born in Sicily. My mother is from Siracusa, and my father is from the Province of Catania, a really small town right outside of Catania called Palagonia. My dad did not come to this country until much later in life, in his early thirties, maybe very late twenties. My mother came when she was 10.
My mom speaks perfect English, but my father, Luigi, not so much. They live in Connecticut, which has a pretty large population of Italians, particularly Sicilians.
I've been an avid cook my whole life. I've no formal training whatsoever.
You were a finalist on The Great American Recipe. Tell us about that experience.
I made it to the finale, which was really exciting. One of the last dishes you make before the finale is something called "Your Recipe DNA." And it's supposed to be a dish that literally defines who you are both culturally and spiritually.
So, for me, there was absolutely no question that I was going to make cucuzza. And I was probably, in the same token, going to be introducing many, many people to this idea of this gourd.
Most people don't know what it is. It's not found anywhere in groceries or even at most farmer's markets. It's not found. And really, the only way you can come across cucuzza is if you grow them or you have an uncle or grandfather who grows them.
I knew the culinary producers would not be able to find a cucuzza for me. They told me, "I'm sorry, you're going to need to come up with an alternative dish. This isn't going to work for us." We don't know what that is, and we can't find it.
So I said, "If I can get my hands on one and have it shipped, may I use it?"
They said, "Good luck finding one."
This was in October, so we were at the end of the growing season. I called a million places, and I found J. Louis Liuzza of Liuzza's Cucuzza Farm in Independence, Louisiana. I messaged him on Facebook. He next-day air-mailed the most beautiful cucuzza I've ever seen in a wooden crate to the show.
I was so happy that I was able to prepare this dish on national television, which was really a really unique opportunity and a really sort of proud moment for me culturally from my perspective of growing up with this food, which, to me, is just synonymous with love and health and healing and history and simplicity. I mean everything that you would think of when you think of Sicilian culture; I just can't think of a better representation in one food that sort of encompasses all of that.
What cucuzza dish did you make on the show?
I made a classic cucuzza stew with broken spaghetti, tomatoes, potatoes. I really wanted the essence of the squash itself to stand and speak for itself without overcomplicating it. Because to me, even though there are myriad ways you can prepare cucuzza, this was the way that I remembered it as a kid. And so I wanted to make sure that I kind of did that process justice just by presenting it in its simplest form.
How was your cucuzza recipe received by The Great American Recipe judges?
Well, I made one of the judges, Francis Lam, cry. Tiffany Derry, a restaurateur, has been to Sicily, so she had heard of it but never tasted it. Tim Hollingsworth, a famous chef from L.A., had never had it either.
It was greatly received. I won that round.
The show is not a cutthroat competition. It's really more about showcasing how food connects us in America because we are a melting pot. We are made up of so many different cultures and so many different traditions. And food is sort of that common denominator. Even though we all have different traditions and flavor profiles, it's what kind of brings us all together.
I think the way I expressed my excitement for the cucuzza and the joy it brought me, that storyline… They liked that.
How did you land on the show?
I was contacted by a casting agent out of L.A. who happened to stumble across my Instagram. They were looking for different pockets in different regions of the country to ensure that they had good, well-rounded representation. My Instagram handle is @BostonHomeCooking, and they were trying to check that New England box. So it just happened to be really good luck.
You say you geek out about cucuzzi.
People laugh. So many people have tasted cucuzza for the first time because of me. It's just my love language. It's weird. I know it's a weird obsession, but I do love it.
Do you grow your own cucuzza plants?
I did this year, yes.
Every year, I go on this pilgrimage to find cucuzza somewhere. Somebody's got to be growing it. One of my uncles, one of my cousins, whoever it is. But because we live in New England, and this is a very sensitive squash that requires a lot of heat and a good setup, some seasons they would yield a lot and others they wouldn't.
I was just so tired every year of begging to people for their cucuzzas. So I just decided that I was going to just grow them myself. Fortunately, I had an excellent growing season this year. I think I yielded six, and I still have two more on the vine, which is a lot for the space that I allotted.
What's your cucuzza-growing set-up?
I used netting initially for the vines to climb, just to facilitate the climbing. There's a couple ways you could do it. You do not need anything fancy. You could grow snake squash on the ground.
It does not need to be elevated. The only reason why people do that is because it grows straight. When it's on the ground, it's really going to be formless, and that's when you get a lot of those spiral ones.
I wanted mine straight though. I had a vision in mind, and so I used some netting. What I did was I took one of my kids' old soccer nets that they were no longer using, cut it into pieces, and hung it down from the top of a pergola. It kind of grew up from there, and then it grew so out of control that it was over the fence, well into my neighbor's yard. He's the nicest guy and very tolerant of my hobby.
I think my biggest one was almost four feet long, and it was hanging in his yard. He had no idea what it was. As a thank you, I'm going to make him and his wife a pot of cucuzza stew just to say thanks.
You said your father grew cucuzza plants when you were a kid.
My dad had a very elaborate, thriving garden and still does, but because they spend time in Italy, he can't really go too crazy.
To the cousins and family members that I have in Italy, getting excited about cucuzza would be the equivalent of getting excited about a piece of gum. They're just like, "Okay, calm down."
"It's not that deep," my son says.
It is to me!
My daughter is 15, and I've made it my life's work as her mother to teach her how to make this dish because I am scared that this will sort of get watered out of our cultural identity.
For me, it's very important to make sure that I continue those traditions with her and to emphasize how important it is for her to do the same.
Where do you get your cucuzza seeds?
So, my dad brought me some Sicilian seeds, but to be honest with you, the best seeds I got were from my contact in Louisiana. My dad's are this monochromatic lime green—nothing special, but the three-tone from Louisiana… It's almost like tie-dyed or tiger-striped. I've never seen it in Sicily, and neither has my father.
How long does a cucuzza take to harvest?
I indoor plant my seeds in April. They sprout very quickly. Within two weeks, they're about six to 12 inches tall. From there, once they can sort of stand on their own, I then plant them in ground or in my raised garden bed. And it's a very quick growth in terms of leaves and vines, but the cucuzza themselves didn't start growing until July.
It's all temperature-dependent. Our summers don't start to get very hot in New England until mid-July, and the cucuzza is a very heat-loving plant. Once you get past the six inch mark, you're past the danger zone. You'll get 30 or 40 little ones that are maybe four or six inches, and they'll die on the vine, shrivel up, and die.
If you are having problems producing at all, it might mean that you don't have any insects pollinating for you. So you can self-pollinate. You can take a Q-tip. Or if you're really rustic, you just rip the flower off and [rub the male and female flowers together]. I did that for a few flowers, but most of the ones that grew, I didn't have to do.
It sounds intimidating, but it's really not. You've just got to water them every day, and you to have a good hot summer, which is why Sicily is the perfect island to grow them on.
Is there a secret to growing a bountiful cucuzza harvest?
There's all kinds of wives tales about what you should add to your soil. My dad is adamant that he takes the old espresso grinds from his coffee machine and then sprinkles them into the soil, which I did that. I have no idea if that really does anything. I also use manure just to sort of naturally fertilize and that's it.
How do you store cucuzzi after harvesting?
They don't all come out at once. They're very scattered in terms of the rate of growth and production. I prepare one almost immediately, and then a week later, another one will be ready to pick, and another. So it is spread out.
The best way to maintain your stash would be to cut it, peel it, and blanche it. Then drain it, airtight it, and then freeze it.
What's the texture and taste of cucuzza versus zucchini?
I always have the hardest time describing cucuzza to people. It's not like a zucchini. Zucchini, to me, does not have a sweet undertone at all. This does, and it's almost like the texture and consistency of what you'd have if you were to cook a cucumber.
Zucchini has a very distinct, almost earthy flavor, whereas a cucuzza, to me, tastes like candy.
My kids are like, "Do you know what candy tastes like?"
Maybe that's the wrong word for them. But when I say that, I just mean the sweetness. You really don't have to do much in terms of enhancing it.
What are some ways to cook cucuzzi?
The classic way is just the stew, which ironically is a soup essentially, and nobody would ever think that you would eat soup in the summer, particularly in Sicily, when it can be upwards of 110 [degrees Fahrenheit]. But they do. It's like this weird exception where they just eat it in the summer.
What I've been learning from some cucuzza Facebook groups is that down south, they marry it quite often with shrimp, which is something I had never done or thought to do. They almost do a jambalaya-type dish.
I like it fried, just straight-up fried with a little balsamic vinegar, and then obviously the pasta. I make different versions of it. I'll add sweet potatoes just to give it a different flavor profile.
When you share your love for growing and cooking cucuzza, what do you hope people take away?
I hope people are open to the idea of connecting to produce that is so indigenous to such a small island and appreciate its uniqueness because it is not plentiful where we are here in the United States. I want them to appreciate it in a way that you wouldn't necessarily give a regular vine vegetable. It's really a marvel.
My Sicilian grandmother may have been the cook of the household, but it was my grandfather who grew much of the produce she used in her dishes.
I can still remember sitting in the kitchen as Luciano Pavarotti's tenor voice filtered through the fragrant air. Nonna was stirring a pot of something wonderful on the stove when Nonno burst through the door with a tray of sun-dried tomatoes. He'd dried them himself by wrapping the tray in plastic and setting it out in the sun to do its magic. Who needed store-bought when doing it yourself was so easy and delicious?
Food blogger Andrea Lagana of Hip Hip Gourmet agrees, but she "sun dries" her tomatoes in the oven before popping them into a dehydrator.
"Doing it outside is nice and all, but there are lots of variables to consider (such as bugs, temperature, rain, etc.), so using a dehydrator is the no-fail preferred method in our family," she says.
Andrea took time out to share why she dries her own tomatoes, which tomatoes are best for drying, how to boost dried tomato flavor, and which recipes are best for sun-dried tomatoes.
What is your background, and where is your Italian family from?
I'm a proud second-generation Italian. Both of my parents were born in Italy, both in Calabria, but in different towns. My dad is from Scilla, and my mom is from Montalto Uffugo.
Did your family sun-dry tomatoes?
My parents don't actually remember their families sun-drying tomatoes in Italy because they were so small when they left. However, my mom does have a few memories of her aunts and uncles sun-drying figs from their fresh backyard fig trees, so I'm sure it's not far-fetched to say that they did tomatoes, too.
When did you start sun-drying tomatoes, and why?
I started sun-drying tomatoes as soon as I started living on my own (about a decade or so ago!). It was always a staple in our house growing up and something I would help my parents make every year. I just knew I had to carry on the tradition not only because we've been making them for so long but also because they're so dang delicious, and I seriously can't live without them! So much so that I've actually vowed to make them every year for the rest of my life.
What is your preferred tomato-drying method?
I personally like to start my fresh halved (usually Roma or San Marzano) tomatoes in the oven on the lowest rack for a couple of hours. Then, I transfer them to a dehydrator to finish drying out. This process can be long and requires patience and persistence, as you have to keep going in every so often to check on them and take the ready ones out (they can be ready at different times). I like this method because it's efficient, reliable, and easy.
However, if I lived in Italy under the hot Italian sun, perhaps I would stick to the old-fashioned way of actually using the sun to dry them out completely. My mom used to start them outside in the sun in our backyard (instead of the oven), and then she'd move them to the dehydrator to finish.
How does the process differ from traditional sun-drying?
Traditional sun-drying includes salting the halved tomatoes to draw out excess moisture (which we don't do) and placing them in direct sunlight for several days with a protective covering like a screen or a cheesecloth to keep the insects away. The tomatoes will get rotated or flipped a few times during this process to ensure even drying. The process is generally longer than my family's method of using a dehydrator, as the sun must be shining in order for the tomatoes to dry out completely.
What types of tomatoes are best suited for sun-drying?
We love using fresh and ripe Roma or San Marzano tomatoes for sun-drying. These beauties are the perfect size (go for the smaller ones) and have fewer seeds and more "meat" than other varieties. They also have a firm texture and lower water content, making them ideal for sun-drying. We also make fresh tomato sauce at the same time, and, as any Italian will tell you, Roma and/or San Marzano are basically the only options!
Can you list some common mistakes to avoid when making sun-dried tomatoes?
Not using the right tomatoes: Remember, San Marzano or Roma. My Italian parents wouldn't approve of any other variety!
Overcrowding the dehydrator. The air needs room to circulate, and overcrowding the trays or overlapping the tomatoes will result in uneven and improperly dried tomatoes. For best results, place the tomatoes in a single and even layer.
Taking the sun-dried tomatoes out too soon. You want to make sure they are dry but still bendy when you press them between your fingers. They shouldn't be moist, squishy, or hard at all.
Not tossing the ready ones in a splash of oil while waiting for the rest to finish. As I said, this process can take several days (or even weeks, depending on how many tomatoes you're drying). Tossing the ready ones in a bit of oil and keeping them in a container with a tight-fitting lid keeps them fresh and prevents mold before jarring.
Not ensuring that all of the sun-dried tomatoes are completely submerged in oil at all times (after jarring). Make sure to always press them down beneath the oil with a fork after each use and/or topping up the oil as often as is needed.
Not having patience. It's a virtue and so required in this process. But trust me, it's totally worth it and will pay off tenfold!
How can you enhance the flavor of tomatoes during the drying process?
You can definitely add salt to the halved tomatoes before drying. I'm sure you could also add some spices (e.g., garlic powder or Italian seasoning) if you wish. I haven't ever tried doing this before drying, but I'm sure it would be a good experiment.
Personally, my family likes to keep the tomatoes plain Jane during the drying process. We enhance the flavor after the tomatoes are completely dried out by adding loads of fresh chopped garlic, oregano, salt, and oil as we jar them.
What are the benefits of drying tomatoes at home versus buying them from a store?
Like anything homemade, they're just way better for so many reasons! First and foremost, they are much cheaper in the long run than store-bought varieties. I find that you can't find a good-tasting jar of sun-dried tomatoes for less than $15 these days (and I'm talkin' the smallest of small jars you could find). I also find that the oil used in most jarred varieties isn't an oil I consume on a regular basis, so I prefer making my own so I can control the exact ingredients and measurements that go into each jar.
And, of course, the real benefit of making sun-dried tomatoes at home is that I seriously cannot find a sun-dried tomato that is as delicious as the ones my family has been making for all of these years. Call me biased, but it's a fact!
What are some creative ways to incorporate sun-dried tomatoes into your cooking?
I love using sun-dried tomatoes in my cooking, so I feel like I can never have enough of them! Eating them straight out of the jar is, of course, also delicious. But here are some ways I like to use them:
In pasta—why, of course! I wouldn't be Italian if I didn't suggest throwing some into the next pasta dish you make. My mom adds them to her pasta aglio e olio (a traditional simple olive oil and garlic pasta), which takes it to a whole other level.
If you're feeling fancy (but not really, because all it takes is 10 minutes to make!), try my pesto rosso (aka my sun-dried tomato pesto), where the homemade sun-dried tomatoes are the true star! You can use this pesto on pasta, as a base for a pizza, or as a marinade for things like chicken or pork. It's even great on eggs.
I love chopping sun-dried tomatoes and adding them to anything, from pizza (they're so good on pizza!) to meatballs (like my homemade sun-dried tomato turkey meatballs with spinach and goat cheese).
One of my favorite things to do with sun-dried tomatoes is make Mediterranean-inspired dishes. They pair well with olives, capers, artichoke hearts, and spinach.
Here are two of my go-to recipes that use sun-dried tomatoes:
If you're a fan of donut holes, you'll love sfingi, the quintessential donut of Sicily. While commonly served on Saint Joseph’s Day and at Christmastime, these sweet and sometimes savory treats are a hit any time of the year. I caught up with Sicilian Food Tours owner Carmel Ruggeri to chat about her version of sfingi, which reminds me of my own Nonna's recipe.
Tell me about your background.
I was born in Australia. My parents migrated to Sydney in the 60s. They are both from Scoglitti, which is located on the south coast of Sicily. I have owned many Italian restaurants in Sydney and have always had a serious passion for food. I started tours about 13 years ago because my customers were continuously saying, "when are you going to take me to Sicily, Carmel?" I base myself in Scoglitti when I am in Sicily. It is a quaint little fishing village located on the south coast. White sandy beaches and it has numerous amazing seafood restaurants which people from all over the island come to visit.
What does your heritage mean to you?
I am a very proud Sicilian. Sicily has a rich history of mixed cultures, and I think this has helped shape my curiosity about discovering different cultures and meeting various people from all over the world. Sicilians are very proud of their rich soil and their produce, as am I, and I want the world to know who we are and taste all our produce and products. We have strong family values and a strong sense of community, which is evident as you visit the villages of Sicily and attend feasts and events throughout the island. Most of our events are around food. Growing up, when we came together with our cousins and extended family, it was always about food, and if there were only 10 of us for Sunday lunch, there would always be enough leftovers for days. My mother showed love by feeding us, and until today, even though she is very unwell and barely able to walk, her first question to me in the morning after breakfast is, "What can we prepare for dinner tonight?" I'm proud to say she passed on the cooking gene to me.
What are sfingi, and how are they typically served?
Sfingi is a donut. Sicilian recipes differ from village to village. We serve it with sultanas and roll them in sugar and cinnamon. When I was a child, my mother used to make them with fennel seeds. I definitely prefer them with sultanas.
What is the difference between zeppole and sfingi?
Sfingi are donut-style fritters made into random shapes. Zeppole are made from pastry and have fillings, such as the Zeppole di San Giuseppe, which is a pastry made for the patron saint day of Saint Joseph. They look like an open profiterole with cream in the middle. However many of my Calabrese friends call savoury sfingi zeppole. They add anchovies inside the dough mixture and fry them and serve them. Many restaurants serve these on bar menus around the world. They help drink sales because they are nice and salty and make their customers thirsty.
Is this a family recipe? What went into developing it?
I have watched my mother and aunts make sfingi since I was a little girl. Like most recipes handed down from my mother, it was, "Add a pinch of this and a pinch of that." Her recipes were never precise, and I had to work it out on my own. I know now that with sfingi dough, you need to mix it well and give them enough time to rise to get those large, great, airy bubbles in them.
I noticed your sfingi recipe happens to be vegan.
Most of the recipes I know of sfingi are vegan. My cousin, who is from the Messina region, adds mashed potato to hers, and another friend told me that in Sardinia, they add mashed cauliflower.
What do you hope at-home cooks and bakers will take away from your recipes?
I hope they get to try a little bit of Sicilian flavors in their homes and enjoy how such little ingredients can go a long way.
Tell me about Sicilian Food Tours. Where do you go, and what can participants expect?
Sicilian Food Tours is based in the seaside fishing village of Scoglitti, and we travel to the surrounding areas such as baroque Modica, Ragusa Ibla, majestic Noto, Ortigia on the East Coast, and many other south Sicily locations. I like to think that guests get a full cultural experience on my tours. They come into our family home and see Nonna cook. Guests get to meet many of my relatives at their bakeries and pastry stores and come behind the scenes and see how everything is created. They come to my cousin's tomato or eggplant farms and see produce from start to finish. We pride ourselves on being a tour with a difference, offering meals with an array of differences from a Michelin-style restaurant to eating a Sicilian salsicciaat a BBQ to a winetasting with lunch at a beautiful winery with a top sommelier on hand telling us about all the grape varieties and winemaking. Our tours are very personalized tours, and we only run three- or four-week-long tours a year.
Chickpea flour is versatile and nutritious. Photo by Natasha Mamysheva
Just about every weekend of my childhood, my family would drive from our home in Racine, Wisconsin, to Milwaukee, where we'd visit with relatives and enjoy classic Sicilian suppers. My Nonna had a pantry full of ingredients from Italian grocer Glorioso's.
One of these staples was chickpea flour, farina di ceci, which is made by crushing dried garbanzo beans.
Using this versatile, gluten-free, and protein-packed flour, she'd often make panelle, chickpea flour cutlets that she'd serve between freshly baked Sicilian bread.
I was delighted to discover a panelle recipe just like my Nonna's on Ada Parisi's Siciliani Creativi in Cucina. We recently discussed all things chickpea flour, a superfood you can now find at most supermarkets. Ada, who currently calls Rome home, was born in Messina, Sicily, and aims to make Sicilian cuisine better known through her recipes.
How is chickpea flour made?
Chickpea flour is simply obtained by crushing dehulled chickpeas: the chickpeas are ground until they become an impalpable powder that is slightly yellow-colored. It is also possible to prepare it at home using common dried chickpeas. Just wash them, toast them in the oven at 150 degrees for about 20 minutes, and then blend everything in a food processor until you obtain flour.
What are some uses for chickpea flour?
Chickpeas are a food widely used in traditional recipes from various Italian regions. For this reason, but also for cultural reasons (they're an ingredient that ancient farmers always had in their pantries, cheap and nutritious), chickpeas and chickpea flour are so used in Italy.
How does its use vary by region?
Among the main Italian recipes with chickpea flour is farinata, a type of low focaccia made with chickpea flour, extra virgin olive oil, and aromatic herbs such as rosemary. Widespread in various regions (Liguria, Tuscany, and Sardinia), it is also called fainá or cecina. In Sicily, chickpea flour is used to make panelle, fritters with chickpea flour, pepper, and parsley, to be eaten inside a sandwich (the famous pane e panelle). It is also possible to prepare vegan omelets with chickpea flour and vegetables. But also highly protein legume gnocchi by adding flour, eggs, and grated cheese. With chickpea flour, you can also make desserts: in Sicily, cassatelle di agira is a famous, sweet raviolo that contains chocolate and chickpea flour inside.
Why is chickpea flour so widely used in Italy?
It is a legacy of Italian peasant culture. Chickpeas are a very traditional and widespread crop in different regions, especially in central and southern Italy. Furthermore, in addition to being an ingredient in various typical recipes, today, they meet the needs of those who are intolerant to gluten or celiac disease.
What are the health benefits of chickpea flour?
Chickpea flour, like chickpeas, is rich in vegetable proteins with medium biological value. It contains little fat and a lot of fiber, as well as a good amount of vitamins B1, A, and E, in addition to mineral salts such as phosphorus and potassium. It is gluten-free and has a low glycemic index; therefore, it is suitable for celiac diets and recommended in the diet for diabetics.
What do you hope at-home cooks will take away from your recipes?
I hope that those who read my recipes will share and make their own idea of a seasonal diet linked to the territory and small productions. The valorization of Italian agricultural and agri-food products in every kitchen is the key to eating healthily (as the Mediterranean Diet says) and helping the agricultural supply chain increase income with what it produces.
It was our first night in Palermo. My husband and I were on our honeymoon but chose to visit with relatives, who insisted we stay in their lovely home. My cousin Patrizia sat us down for supper: breaded cauliflower pasta with pine nuts, raisins, and capers.
"This is just like my mother's recipe!" I exclaimed.
"It is a family recipe," Patrizia said with a smile.
So, for years, that's what I thought—until I researched Sicilian recipes for my novels. While I have yet to see this particular cauliflower pasta on a restaurant menu, I uncovered a bevy of similar Sicilian cauliflower pasta recipes, such as Pasta chi Vruoccoli Arriminati.
But none had the capers, which my mother says add the slightly bitter and salty tanginess that's essential to counter the sweetness of the raisins. Then I stumbled on Michele Di Pietro's MangiaWithMichelle.com recipe for Sicilian pasta with cauliflower, pine nuts, raisins, and—bingo!—capers.
Michele, a New Jersey-based cookbook author, food writer, menu and recipe developer, professional chef, culinary consultant, and former certified public accountant, was gracious enough to take time out to chat with me about this recipe. We discussed her twist on a family classic, the essential ingredients, why you should overcook cauliflower, and what she hopes readers will take away.
Tell me about your background.
I am. I'm 100% Italian-American. I'm half Sicilian and half Abruzzese. My mom's parents came from Sicily separately at the turn of the century when they were young, and my dad's parents were immigrants as well.
What is the history of Sicilian Pasta with Cauliflower, Pine Nuts, Raisins, and Capers for you and your family?
My mom used to make a dish that was sort of like an overcooked mash, kind of partially mashed cauliflower with lots of onions. She would finish it off with bread crumbs, and it was really, really good. And she would make a pasta with broccoli that is also very similar to that, whereas the broccoli is overcooked and it becomes sort of like the sauce for the dish. It's mixed with Pecorino. And so this is kind of a combination of those two ideas.
For me, it's like the way that she would make pasta with broccoli, and also thinking of the pasta with cauliflower dish that she used to make me.
I am a trained chef. I worked in the food service for many, many years, and most of my job was for many, many years was innovation and trying to come up with different ways and interesting ways of doing food to make things interesting. So it's just ingrained in me to always try and do things a little bit differently.
Crispy capers, pine nuts, raisins, all three of those are very Sicilian ingredients, but the way that they're put together in this pasta is not really traditional. I think the traditional dish just has pine nuts and raisins and often anchovies, which I left out. So it's basically, it's kind of inspired by a traditional dish with my personal history based on my mom's dishes. And then, me wanting to add my own twist with the pine nuts and the Marcella wine-soaked raisins.
Why are the pine nuts, raisins, and capers important in this recipe, and how do they contribute to the overall flavor?
Well, they contribute both in flavor and texture. Texture is a really important part of flavor. And so, for me, the capers are important because they add brininess and saltiness and, therefore, also umami, but they add texture because they're crispy. So that makes it interesting. The raisins add a pop of sweetness in a place where you wouldn't expect sweetness. And eating the savory pasta dish and the Marcella wine, like I said, that's just sort of like a fun, interesting twist on it, which just adds a little bit of extra flavor. They're important because they're all rooted in traditional Sicilian ingredients.
You intentionally overcook your cauliflower. Why?
A lot of Italian Americans and Italians tend to overcook their vegetables, which is the exact opposite of what I learned in cooking school. I often think about, oh my god, Chef So-and-So from cooking school would fall over if they saw me cooking my vegetables like this. Why do Italian Americans and Italians tend to overcook their vegetables? I'm not really sure, but they do. And what happens to it in a dish like this is if it becomes part of the sauce. It's really a vegetable-based sauce. And it'll become more of a sauce the more you overcook the cauliflower because it allows you to mash it or smash it with a fork. And when we combine it [with the other ingredients], that will emulsify it, thicken it, and kind of coat the pasta, which is why it's really nice with the hearty pasta; it holds onto this heavier-in-the-texture sauce.
My mother uses breadcrumbs when she makes this dish. Can you speak to why Sicilians use breadcrumbs?
Well, it goes back to cucina povera, the combination of using what you have and not having a lot. So, back in the day, they didn't always have Pecorino Romano. I'm sure they didn't have any cheese at all, but they had leftovers from bread. So breadcrumbs were a way to add a little something to different dishes, a lot of times in pasta.
There are two iconic pasta dishes for [St. Joseph's Day]. One of them, which I also have a recipe for on my website, has breadcrumbs and anchovies. It's very, very simple. It's spaghetti with breadcrumbs and anchovies, and it doesn't have cheese. It's just toasted breadcrumbs, and it gives you all that texture. With that dish, specifically, the breadcrumbs represent the sawdust of St. Joseph, who's the patron saint of Sicily.
What do you hope readers will take away from your recipe?
I hope that all my recipes bring people together around the table. And I guess the last thing is I always just want people to make the recipe their own. I like all my recipes to be an inspiration. And just like I was inspired by the recipes and I made recipes my own, I would like them to do the same thing. So if they don't want to have crispy capers or they don't like capers, leave the capers out. Or if they want to make this recipe with broccoli instead of cauliflower, then do it.
