Page 56 - The Rough Guide of Sicily

picnic food, and you’ll usually be able to jazz up your picnic lunch with sweet

peppers, olives, seafood salad and pickled vegetables. Some markets also sell
traditional takeaway food, loved by Sicilians, though perhaps a challenge for some
visitors – usually things like boiled artichokes, cooked octopus, raw sea urchins and
mussels, and fried offal sandwiches.

ICE CREAM

A cone (un cono) of famous Sicilian ice cream (gelato) – or perhaps a dollop in a
brioche – is the indispensable accessory to the evening passeggiata. The best choice
is at a gelateria, where the range is a tribute to the Italian imagination and flair for

display. If they make their own on the premises, there’ll be a sign saying
“produzione propria”; sadly, however, this increasingly means they make the stuff
from pre-packed commercial pastes and syrups. Anyhow, there’s no trouble in
locating the finest gelateria in town: it’s the one that draws the crowds. And as it’s
hard to find decent ice cream in restaurants these days (it’s mostly confezionato, ie
mass-produced), many locals also head to the gelateria for dessert.

Pizza

Outside its home of Naples, Sicily is the best place to eat pizza in Italy. It comes flat,
not deep-pan, and there are some fairly distinctively Sicilian combinations – using
pecorino cheese instead of mozzarella, oregano instead of basil, and lots of anchovies,
capers and hot peppers. It’s also easy to find pizzas cooked in the traditional way, in
wood-fired ovens (forno a legna), so that they arrive blasted and bubbling on the

surface, with a distinctive charcoal taste. Unfortunately, because of the time it takes to
set up and light the ovens, forno a legna pizzas are usually only served at night, except
on Sundays and in some resorts in summer.

Restaurant meals

For a full meal, rather than just a pizza, you’ll have to go either to a trattoria or a
ristorante. A trattoria is usually the cheaper, more basic choice, offering good home
cooking (cucina casalinga), while a ristorante is often more upmarket (tablecloths,

printed menu and uniformed waiters). In small towns and villages, the local trattoria is
often only open at lunchtime, there may not be a menu and the waiter will simply reel
off a list of what’s available. In tourist resorts and larger towns you’ll come across
hybrid establishments (a trattoria-ristorante, say, or ristorante-pizzeria) that cater to
all tastes, while there are also more youthful pasta-oriented restaurant-bars called

spaghetterias. Signs or blackboards announcing “pranzo turistico” or “pranzo
completo” are advertising a limited-choice set menu which can be pretty good value