Page 54 - The Rough Guide of Sicily

backpackers’ hostel and budget hotel.

Palazzo II Cavaliere, Modica. Stylishly restored Baroque B&B.

La Salina Borgo di Mare, Salina. Aeolian Island chic in an old saltworks.

Stenopus Greco, Porticello. Boutique rooms in a working fishing port near
Palermo.

Suite d’Autore, Piazza Armerina. Every artwork and piece of furniture is for sale in

this outrageously quirky designer hotel.

Tonnara di Bonagia, Bonagia, near Trapani. Fun, family lodgings in a converted
tuna-fishing village.

< Back to Basics

FOOD AND DRINK

There’s much to be said for coming to Sicily just for the eating and drinking.
Often, even the most out-of-the-way village will boast somewhere you can get a
good lunch, while places like Catania, Palermo, Ragusa, Trapani and Siracusa can
keep a serious eater happy for days. And it’s not ruinously expensive either,

certainly compared to prices in the rest of mainland Italy: a full meal with local
wine generally costs around €30 a head, a pizza, drink and ice cream around half
that.

Contemporary Sicilian cooking leans heavily on locally produced foodstuffs and
whatever can be fished out of the sea, mixed with the Italian staples of pasta, tomato

sauce and fresh vegetables. Red chillies, tuna, swordfish, sardines, olives, pine nuts
and capers all figure heavily, while the mild winter climate and long summers mean
that fruit and vegetables are less seasonal (and much more impressive) than in
northern Europe: strawberries appear in April, for example, while oranges are
available right through the winter. The menu reader in the “Language” section covers

all the basics, as well as including a full rundown of Sicilian specialities, some of
which crop up in nearly every restaurant.

THE ORIGINAL FUSION FOOD

Historically, Sicilian cuisine has been held in high regard: one of the earliest of

cookbooks, the Art of Cooking by Mithaecus, derived from fifth-century BC
Siracusa, while in medieval times Sicilian chefs were much sought after in foreign
courts. As the centuries passed, the intermittent waves of immigration left their mark,