December's traditions

(traduzione in italiano su Agave blog)

The month of December is the richest of festivities, traditions and gastronomy.
The shops are already adorned with the Christmas decorations and cake shops are already full of sweets and biscuits.
The streets of the city are enriched by the colored lights (l'archi) of various types (simple threads of light, or wooden structures in the shape of stars, circles, flower), by white gold angels (which remember the sculptures of Serpotta), in expectation of seeing the big Christmas tree in front of Theatre Politeama, or see the steps of the Teatro Massimo covered by a red carpet of "Christmas stars", and palm trees illuminated by golden lights that make suggestive night.

This year, probably will be a climate of austerity because of the recession, certainly people will spend less, but perhaps curb excessive consumerism is also positive (of course if this will be a chance to revive other values, such as the rediscovery of self and others, of the value of diversity, peace, something deeper and not the ephemeral things that has filled television and the heads of people in recent years). I hope the fear of the future (fed every day by mass media) that turns easily into individualism, racism, closure, do not take the upper hand and that outweighs the will to live, to love and then even laugh and why not ... eat.

It 'also why in this particular year, it is important to celebrate and have fun with a few things. And the kitchen poor (but at the same time cheerful)of Palermo helps raise the mood without spending too much.

Church of Immacolata Concezione inside Capo Market

The month of December opens (on 7 and 8) with the feast of “Immaculate Conception” that we called simply "A Maruonna."
Again the opportunity is good to reunite families at the table.
The evening's eve (December 7) is the day when the people starts to play cards and bingo, which will last throughout the month and will conclude with the epiphany.
But the people of Palermo does not play on an empty stomach ... the dishes of this occasion is "Sfincione" and especially "Fried Cod or with raisins."
For lunch the next day usually eats "ANELLETTI o furnu"
"Lasagne cu sucu ri cutini ", or pork sausage with the sauce. Perhaps to sanction the arrival of cold with these foods more fat. The sweets to celebrate "A Maruonna" are many and very attractive, the Reginella (dry biscuits covered with sesame), "the Mustazzuola" (biscuit with honey ), "Buccellatini" and "u Cucciddatu tunnu". These are biscuits, stuffed figs, almonds, raisins.
We prepared "the Sfinci" home-made (leavened dough, fried in hot oil and then sprinkling of sugar), other than "Sfinci of San Giuseppe" which are stuffed with ricotta and you eat for the day which celebrates the namesake saint.

The feast that follows is Saint Lucia (on 13 December). Throughout the day "is not possible" eat bread and pasta, because the legend says that could become blind (during the month I will have more time to tell stories, legends and recipes). The people of Palermo have not taken literally the idea of penance or sacrifice, and so have invented a range of delicacies to can give up pasta and bread in particular .... For having to replace the breakfast with bread and milk, prepared rice soup with broccoli (cauliflower) or boiled vegetables, "patatevugghiute" (boiled potatoes)," Allessi "(boiled chestnuts) or even "Panelle and cazzilli”. For lunch and dinner the Arancino with meat or “al burro” (with ham and cheese), is great fun to prepare at home that often involves all the family members. "Grattò" ( potatoes with meat sauce and peas), and panelle crocchè and "patati a spizzatinu" (stewed potatoes).
And especially not miss the sweet, ”La Cuccìa”.
The Cuccìa was originally a very simple dish and poor, which was boiled wheat and seasoned with olive oil.
In Palermo, the original “Cuccìa” has given rise to a new sweet, with wheat boiled, cream cheese, candied and chocolate flakes.

Christmas is also in Palermo the most important festival of the year.
Families have already decorated the tree (there are two schools of thought, one that will decorate the tree on December 8 "Pa 'Maruonna", the second on 13 for Saint Lucia), there are people who make the crib.
The gifts are ready and the food (which is beginning to prepare the day before).

On the morning of Christmas (or the night of the eve) usually the people goes to Church (even those who do not go there throughout the year).

And then returned home will start the eating.
The choice is wide, it can vary from meat to fish, and now has been "contaminated" by more modern dishes and other sources, but here I only followed the traditional cuisine.
Starting from the starters: "U'Piattinu" with all types of cheeses and cold cuts (pizzami), "L’ Arenga salata" with herring, orange, pepper and onion oil, "U ficatu ri sette cannuola " (pumpkin in sweet and sour), "Oliva bianche cu' l’accia (olives with celery), “verdure a pastetta "(broccoli, artichokes, cardoons etc, in batter and fried)," Sardi a beccaficu " etc.
As first courses, "A pasta o furnu", "A pasta chi vrocculi arriminata."
As main courses "Brociolone" or "Farsu magru" (meat roll stuffed with breadcrumbs, pine nuts, raisins, cold cuts, boiled eggs), “Pisci spada ‘a ghiotta” (swordfish).
And many desserts including "cannoli", "Turruni", "Cucciddatu", "Petra fennula", including various pastries "Sciù" (BIGNE with ricotta), "Cassatine", "Cannulicchi", ficu sicchi" (figs dried),
"passuluna" (figs boiled) and scacciu (pumpkin seeds, chick peas, peanuts).

The same dishes are also prepared for the following day, Boxing Day and New Year lunch.
The night of the end of the year, someone goes outside home
You can then make a walking to Politeama, where there is the New Year concert.

Capone apparecchiato

It is an ancient dish of the kitchen of Monsù, which elaborated a special sweet and sour sauce (based on philosophical concepts of harmony and balance), which had pre Islamic origins. With this sauce French cooks seasoning dishes of meat or fish, putting together ( "appareiller") ingredients. The fish was the capone, a fish that's in our fishmongers in autumn.

The sweet and sour sauce is the same that is used to season the famous eggplant caponata, a delicious dish that is part of the poor kitchen (in fact in this case, slices of capone were replaced by cheaper pieces of eggplant). It is possible that the name caponata origins from the original plate capone, although there are several hypotheses about the origin of the name caponata.

Ingredients:

1kg of fish, celery, 50gr of capers, 100 gr.of green olives, 1 onion, extra virgin olive oil, 100gr. tomato concentrate (you can also use peeled tomatoes), salt and pepper, 1 tablespoon sugar, 3 tablespoons of wine vinegar.

Recipe: Clean and cut into pieces the capone. Clean the celery and cook in boiling water. Rinse the capers. Wash, pitted and cut into pieces olives. Chop the onion. In a saucepan fry the onion in olive oil. Add the tomato concentrate diluted with a little water, chopped celery, salt and pepper, and cook in moderate flame.

While the sauce cooks, pass into flour the slices of capone and fry in a pan with olive oil hot. When they are ready, put them on a plate covered with absorbent paper. Add to the sauce, olives, capers, vinegar and sugar, cook for a few minutes, until the vinegar is evaporated. Add the fish and cook for a few minutes. This dish is better cold.

"Pasta with sparacelli assassunati"

Another typical dish of Palermo is "a pasta with sparaceddi assassunati."

The "sparacelli" is a particular type of broccoli with large sprouts ( "giummi") and edible leaves. The term “Assassunati” derives from an ancient sauce (very cheap) used by Jewish communities on Sicily and then used from the "Monsù" (French chefs), to season ( "assaisonner") vegetables (see brochure published dall'aapit "Kitchen history and traditions "). The main ingredient of this sauce are the excellent Sicilian olive oil and garlic.

In Palermo we cooked with the assassunata sauce, the "sparacelli", the "broccoli" (cauliflower), the "giri" (chard) etc. The kind of pasta that is used for this dish is the “bucatini”, much appreciated in the kitchen of Palermo, perhaps because when you eat makes “u scrusciu” (noise), is certainly not a very refined image, but is part of our culture!

Ingredients:

Sparacelli, extra virgin olive oil, two anchovy fillets, two cloves of garlic, salt and pepper.

Recipe:

Wash thoroughly the sparacelli. Cut into pieces the sprouts, and the leaves.Boil them for 10-15 minutes in salted water. Remove from water the sparacelli and place them in a dish. Put in a large frying pan olive oil, anchovy and two cloves of garlic cut into large pieces, fry slightly and then add the sparacelli and some 'pepper. Is ready in minutes.

Cook pasta in the cooking water of sparacelli, after ten minutes remove the pasta from the pot and put it in a pan with sauce. Put it in the dishes and… Good appetite!

I prefer transform the red Halloween pumpkin in this way…

"Ficatu di sette cannola." (Pumpkin in sweet and sour)
“Liver of the Sette cannola neighbourhood”

This is a dish of the "palermitana poor cuisine". It was born from the processing of a more "rich" dish, cooked by the Monsù (refined chefs who cooked for the noble French), the main ingredient of this dish was liver (breaded and fried).

Probably in the neighborhood of “sette cannola”, where the poorest people rarely ate meat (though it was offal), some good housewives of Palermo came to know of this delicious dish and so decided to reinvent itself, replacing the liver with a cheaper ingredient, pumpkin red. The result will envy the best Monsù!

500 grams of red pumpkin, olive oil, 1 teaspoon sugar, 2 tablespoons of vinegar, 2 cloves of garlic, mint, pepper, salt

Peel the pumpkin and remove the red part with the seeds (if you like, the seeds can be dried in the sun and transformed into what we call "semenza"). Cut it into slices and a cm thick. Fry the pumpkin slices in olive oil on a slow fire, turned gently (will take a brown color). Add the cloves of garlic cut into slices. When the pumpkin are just fried, you must remove the excess oil, raise the heat, and pour over the vinegar (which will be done dissolve a teaspoon of sugar). When vinegar has evaporated, put them in a plate and add salt, pepper and especially mint leaves. Let cool is more tasty!

Today, another “memorable day”

mercoledì 22 ottobre 2008

Massimo and I, with our friends Igor and Maria Pia, was again at the open market Capo, but this time with a group of 23 people from Kansas City-USA ( Slow Food KC ) to help our friend Jude to show them the market.They are really nice people and we spent a very beautiful morning.
We tasted many different kind of food, like the Frittola (beef bits cooked in the lard, that a man with a particular basket take and put in a piece of paper),

or the Sfincione ( a particular pizza, with tomato-sauce, onions, anchovies, cheese and bread crumbs), olives (green and black), and bread with spleen and cheese.

They really liked all!We see many kind of fruit, and fish, tables with bread,

counter with meet,

table with aromas (oregano, saffron, raisins, cinnamon, etc).

And finally we was in the pastry-shop

where we finded the “frutta martorana” (fruit of marzipan) and the “Pupa a cera” (puppet of sugar) typical during the day of the “Celebration of the Deads” (2th of November).

We see together the beautiful church of Sant’ Anna, in Barocco style, they was really impressed!

When we was out of the open market, we went at the “Antica trattoria del Monsù”,

and had a really good lunch with a rich Menù (pasta with anchovies, “pasta alla Norma” with tomato and aubergines, “panelle e cocchè”, “caponata” with aubergines and a particular

sweetand sour sauce, tripe, etc).

This was really a beautiful and rich of emotions day!

Evelin

photos by Igor Scalisi Palminteri and Judy Witts