Culinary Tour of Sicily

I went to a seminar "A Culinary Tour of Sicily," and reaffirmed my suspicions that Sicilian food is some of the best in the world. Looking at maps and discussing the historical migration patterns across the Mediterranean - the Phoenicians sailing west, bringing Arab customs, the Spaniards sailing east, and of course all the Greeks - one appreciates the cultural (and culinary) fusion on the island that's so centrally located in the sea. As different people brought their traditions to Sicily, applied in new ways over time to the produce natural to the climate and landscape, the foods evolved to that we know as Sicilian today.

The seminar, led by a Sicilian culinary historian, took us through the various Sicilian food staples, from the bread shaped into an endless array of shapes to honor everything from saints to children, to the wines (brought from her own vineyard), and of course olive oil. In a taste test of sample Tuscan and Sicilian olive oils, I found them to be distinctly different in flavor: grassier vs. intense, peppery, respectively; we also learned how to determine the quality of olive oil by looking at the details in the bottle packaging. I also learned that Bertolli oil, marketed as an Italian product, was actually bought out by the Spanish!

I also learned about the process to make ricotta (which I learned, by the way, is not actually cheese - ricotta is in fact made from the remaining milk whey after one has made cheese), which in Sicily is made from solely milk-fed sheep, giving it a pure, unadulterated flavor. As we worked through a tasting menu in the seminar, discussing the various dishes and how they relate to the vegetable-based Mediterranean diet, I thought once again how different real Italian food is from the Italian-American food that people here associate with the country. In Sicily the primary foodstuff was traditionally primarily vegetables supplemented with bread, with pasta saved for special occasions for the majority of the Sicilian families. Combine veggies with heart-healthy olive oil and fresh fish - no wonder those Sicilian fisherman live into their 90s!

Here was my plate of "tastes of Sicily":

Bruschetta samples with anchovy, rich pesto, and fresh tomato and garlic; caponata (eggplant-veg medley; here topped with a slice of boiled egg); rosemary focaccia bread made from olive oil and white wine (so delicious and fluffy!); and a light lemon curd cream topped with a sugary pastry. True to real Italian cooking, all fresh ingredients make an incredible meal.