I love when guests from our Experience Sicily tours take Sicily home with them and extend their trips with reading more about the culture, listening to the music, watching classic films set on the island, and cooking the cuisine for months after they return. That’s what we set out to do! Tonight I had the…
Tag: street food
The Arancina of My Eye
Let’s talk about the lighter side of the traditions for the Festa di Santa Lucia: Arancine! Yes, this ball of gold is a masterpiece of Palermitano wheat-free street food, and Sicilians of the Conco d’Oro take their arancine very seriously on Saint Lucy’s feast day. The fried rice balls stuffed with beef ragu, peas, and…
Cazzilli: If Panelle Had Siblings
If panelle (chickpea fritters, a specialty of Palermo) had siblings, cazzilli would be panelle’s brothers and sisters. Cazzilli are potato croquettes. They fall into the street-food category of Palermitano cuisine. You can eat them with your fingers or together with panelle, they are often paired inside a sesame seed bun sprinkled with lemon juice and…
Step Beyond Yourself
The true joy of being a tour curator is knowing that your guests are challenging themselves to step beyond their normal ways. Here, Norman is enjoying his first of two pane ca’ meusa (veal spleen sandwiches) in Palermo. And he reported that he looks forward to future opportunities to eat this street food delicacy!
Panelle: Slices of Gold
Panelle are chickpea-flour fritters made with fresh parsley, lemon juice, salt, and olive oil. They are particular to the Palermo region and are eaten as finger food or inside a bun for a panino. Yum. We’ll be eating panelle and more streetfood in Palermo’s open-air markets on Day 13 of September’s Enchanting Sicily small-group tour….
Arancina: I Shouldn’t Have, But I Did
Last week, I featured the Catania-style arancino. Well, this evening upon returning to Bagheria, since I had yet to have a Palermo-style arancina on this trip, I indulged. Here you can see that an arancina is truly shaped and sized like an orange, but isn’t one! Hence the name… arancina. It’s not an orange, but…
Catania’s Rice Balls
I’ve told you about the Palermo-style arancina–a breaded and fried rice ball with a center of peas, caciocavallo cheese, and beef ragu that looks like an orange. Important to note: the end of the word is an A. ArancinA. Well, in Catania, on the east side of Sicily, they have a similar recipe, but with…
Palermo’s Hand-held Cuisine
This weekend in Palermo was the Panoramvs Street Food festival. Organized by Palermo’s civic government with support from the Milan Expo 2015, the Street Food Festival celebrated the city’s world-famous hand-held cuisine including pane cà meusa (veal spleen sandwich, pictured), panelle (chickpea flower fritters), cazzilli (potato fritters) arancine (rice balls), sfincioni (flatbread baked with tomato/anchiovies/caciocavallo…
Does It Make Me Palermitana?
Today we were in Palermo, and we experienced StrEAT Tour Palermo. Here I am with our magnificent host and guide Marco. I am stuffed after eating arancine, panelle e cazzilli, sfincione, pane ca’ meusa (yes, I ate the infamous Palermitano spleen sandwich!!), and gelato con brioche, and drinking local “sangue” wine (blood). Oh, my. At…
Babbaluce Sounds Like a Song, But It’s…
“Babbaluce Belle Pronte” is music to the ears of revelers of the Feast of Santa Rosalia. (Beautiful and Ready to Eat Snails!) For Il Festino, which takes place annually on July 14 and 15, enjoying steamed snails tossed with garlic, olive oil, and fresh Italian parsley is a must.