Ancient Restaurant Discovered At Himera, Where We’ll Be Cooking

In yesterday’s La Repubblica Palermo newspaper, an article explained that at the site of the ancient Greek city of Himera, they have discovered the 6th Century B.C.E. remains of a caffetteria-style restaurant. Ovens, stoves, pots, pans, and plates have been excavated. I visited Himera and met the director of the site back in June with…

Coochy Coochy … Cuccìa

To celebrate Lucia, the Patron Saint of eyes, sight, light, and wheat, Sicilians eat cuccìa. Cuccìa is a pudding made of farro (wheat berries or barley), milk (in this case, ricotta), and honey or sugar. This culinary ritual is practiced in remembrance of the grain that finally arrived by boats on their way from North…

Castelvetrano’s Black Bread

With a dark, hard crust and dark, gold dough, Castelvetrano’s traditional “Black Bread” is something special. So much so, that it’s registered by Slow Food as a protected recipe. What makes it “black” is the special mixture of Sicilian durum wheat flour and tumminìa or timilia flour. Tumminìa flour is milled from a rare, ancient…