Flavors at hand

In Sicily, the pleasures of the palate can be satisfied at their highest level. There are plenty of flavors in Sicilian cuisine, and they are all at your fingertips! Wherever you go, you can follow the aroma of the Sicilian “fast food”: friggitorie (fried food places) and focaccerie, paladin of the most popular traditional food, where you can eat panelle, flat fried cakes made of chickpeas flour, the stigghiole, grilled lamb offal, the sfincioni, similar to focaccia topped with anchovies, tomato, fresh cheese and olives, arancini, deep fried rice balls or “pears”: white if stuffed with rice and diced mozzarella, grated cheese, eggs and peas, or red if they are made with meat sauce.

It doesn’t take much to feel the Mediterranean sun in your mouth! Our tips? Once in Marsala stop at the entrance of what used to be the fish market and is now a colorful and trendy place where the local young people meet. Pass under the Porta Garibaldi and turn right: a few steps, then a ladder takes you to a window through which passes the best bread with panelle of the town .

For a more “consistent” meal, you must the stop at Trattoria Garibaldi (Piazza Addolorata, 36 – Tel: +39 0923.953006; closed for lunch on Saturday and Sunday for dinner), where you can have busiate, a kind of homemade macaroni typical of the Trapanese cuisine, twisted with a branch of buso, the stem of a cereal, topped with tuna sauce, fish couscous, pasta with sardines or swordfish, mixed fried fish and all the variety of grilled fish.

A Grillo wine seems to be the obvious pair to these dishes, because of its citrus fruits notes and its rounded taste. This wine is obtained from a native vine growing in the western area of Sicily, probably imported there from Puglia, and it is the base from which the best DOC Marsala wines are produced.

If, instead of a proper dinner, you prefer a snack accompanied by a glass of wine, Marsala offers a wide range of opportunities: from the spectacular Palazzo Fici , hosting the Enoteca della Strada del Vino di Marsala (Via XI Maggio 32 – tel: +39 0923 713 489 – info@enotecastradavinomarsala.it), to the more discreet Portale Botteghe (Piazza Filippo Milazzo Maggio 5 – tel: +39 0923 360279), a tavern which takes its name from the place where it stands, that is, the merchants’ medieval Jewish quarter, where inside you can admire the ancient walls of the Chiesa Madre, the Cathedral which looms over the square, where the tables are arranged for tasting appetizers served with more than one hundred labels of Sicilian wine from the amazing wine cellar.

Make sure you do not miss a visit to the Gelateria del Cassaro (via XI maggio, 45), for its popular and unforgettable mulberry granita.

(Traduzione di Monia Saponaro)