You have to be a pretty terrible food tourist to come back from Palermo, Sicily, bored and with an empty camera. In this city, street food is fantastic and available EVERYWHERE. Whereas Venice requires thorough investigative work to dig out the really authentic spots, in Palermo you only need to stumble outside to find incredible local foods served pretty much everywhere. Outdoor markets, carts, delis, gelaterie e friggitorie (delis specialized in fried food), restaurants and trattorie, street festivals, and bars are open pretty much around the clock to make your taste buds as happy as can be. In a matter of a few hours, you'll realize you need to make room for another mealtime in your day. Just thinking about it makes my stomach growl. But it's almost brinner here after all!
Here is a compilation of street foods I ate in 2010 during a 5-day trip to Palermo, including two brief visits to the towns of Erice and Marsala. My travel companions and I fell in love with the delicious treats of Palermo and with its regal, multiethnic, and mysterious charm. (One of the great mysteries of our stay, for example, was the disappearance of my room's toilet seat two days into my hotel stay.)
FOODS TO TRY IN PALERMO
#1 FRIED CALAMARI
Here's a great afternoon snack I had near the Vucciria (the most famous outdoor market in Palermo). The fish was fresh, sweet, and crispy. No heavy and herb-rich breading like you would find at an Italian-American restaurant. I believe these calamari were only dusted with flour, but I'm not sure.
#2 HYGIENE FIRST
Again in Vucciria market, where a fishmonger is cleaning
bottarga (tuna roe) on a fountain ledge, while some plump stray dogs (not pictured) gather around. We all know you would NEVER, EVER witness anything like this in a U.S. farmers' market, but on this issue I have to side with Palermo.
#3 GRILLED FISH
Grilled fish is omnipresent on restaurant menus in Palermo, and rightfully so. The fish is wonderful and cooked to perfection. Swordfish steaks are lightly breaded and oiled, just as described in Genesis before the original sin, I believe.
#4 SFINCIONE
The
sfincione is a cross between a pizza and a focaccia and is available from carts pretty much everywhere in Palermo. It is served warm, topped with a little bit of tomato sauce, garlic, onions, and a mix of grated Pecorino and
mollica (breadcrumbs made from the soft inside of the bread—no crust). So soft and flavorful, the sfincione is one my dearest memories of Palermo.
#5 PANI CA' MEUSA
And here is Palermo's gold, in my opinion: the Spleen Sandwich, or, to use the name coined by my brother-in-law, the Spleenburger. The shop where I bought the sandwich in the photo had a huge menu on the wall listing the prices for up to 50 spleenburgers. You need 34 sandwiches? No need to ask the cashier: The price is on the wall. This was my first time eating spleen, and I will tell you it is not as intense as you might imagine. The juicy meat is slapped on a roll, dredged with spleen gravy, and then sprinkled with grated Pecorino. Verdict? I could pretty much eat this forever around the clock.
Babbaluci is the Sicilian name for little snails. In this picture, you can see 2 lbs. of babbaluci we ordered as an afternoon snack. As much as I loved the idea of this snack when I pressed my travel mates to order some, I have to admit that seeing the snails' little eyes and mouths up close annihilated my appetite. Babbaluci, adieu!
#7 ARANCINA BOMBA
You might know
arancini as small, breadcrumbs-coated rice balls that look like little oranges (hence the name). The Palermo version is called
bomba because it's massive, and can better be described as about one and a half portions of risotto rolled up, deep-fried, and served as a snack. Kissing an
arancina bomba before eating is not customary, but it's hard not to do.
#8 SPITINI
If you're anything like me, you had already taken notice of this brick of beauty in the preceding image, and you are there wondering, "Hey, what about that doll?" Well, the brick is called
spitino, and it's a breaded and deep-fried masterpiece of architectural design made of slices of white bread alternated with meat ragù. Some recipes have the sandwiches dipped in béchamel sauce before the breading. Mr Bee was mesmerized by the
spitino, which he referred to as
deep fried lasagne. Whatever you choose to call it, this alone is worth a trip to Italy.
I know you see the fries, but it's the rest that is worth noting. The round potato croquettes are, as you can infer, the crocchè in the title. The small fried triangular snack on the back are panelle, which are chickpea fritters (mind you, they are made with chickpea flour, not whole chickpeas). The small cups are filled with salsa rosa, which is basically Russian dressing. Not the sauce you would expect in Sicily, I know. But Italians love salsa rosa, and you need to accept it.
#10 RICOTTA
Fresh ricotta has been my favorite food since I started eating solids. I hope you'll then understand my horror when I moved to the United States and realized that ricotta here is available everywhere, but in a version so corrupted and distorted to make it completely unrecognizable from the original. I don't want to start a debate on this right now, but please know that ricotta is NOT made with lemon juice and vinegar. Sicilian ricotta is made from sheep's milk and is used in a myriad of knockout recipes. In this open market, we found baked ricottas covered with olives, caramelized onions, and herbs. We were lucky enough to taste them right there at the stand, while sipping some cold beer served to us by the stand's owner. My version of happiness.
#11 ERICE'S GENOVESI
A few hours from Palermo, on the left corner of Sicily, you will find beautiful Erice, an ancient Greek town on top of Mount Erice. In this picture, you can see (from left to right), small
cassate, cannoli, and finally the
genovesi, Erice's specialty. Genovesi are shortcrust pastry filled with cream and served strictly warm right out of the oven. You'll find them at
Maria Grammatico pastry shop.
This is me, in a pastry shop in the town in Marsala, holding my soul mate, the Sicilian cannolo (I specify "Sicilian" because where I come from a cannolo looks like
this). Our friend and guide from Marsala took us to this shop because the ricotta filling is made last minute, and not simply every morning like in most other pastry shops. I didn't dare confess that even the last Sicilian cannolo abandoned in a sewer for a month and covered in dog hair is a trillion times better than those you find anywhere else, but the thought of another level of deliciousness for the cannoli I had tried in Palermo shut me up.
#13 THE MEAT WASTEBASKET
Mr Bee and I had heard tails of terrifying and delicious mystery meats offered in veiled secrecy from beneath large baskets by gentlemen at the far edges of Palermo's markets. We looked for the telltale baskets at each market we visited, but saw no signs of these mythical vendors. However, on our last day in the city while revisiting one of our favorite markets I encountered this gentleman sitting, as described, at the edge of the market behind a huge covered basket. I approached him timidly and asked for a sandwich, and I stood there watching him rummaging in the basket with his bare hands and fishing out strips of warm meat that he then slapped on bread. The specialty here is
frittola, which consists of waste bits of veal left after butchering (fat, cartilage, tendons). This type of frittola was served on a roll, but I hear you can also eat the meat bits on their own. It was an exciting, scary, delicious mid-morning snack that tickled and awoke my Sicilian blood.
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