Sicilian getaways
Sicily’s
rugged beauty and chequered heritage make it an attractive getaway – in the
romantic, not in the Mafia sense of the word. In fact, far from being a shadowy
underworld populated by secretive families and deadly vows of silence, this
beautiful Mediterranean isle – with its eclectic mix of history, culture,
cuisine and laid-back living – is a charming, if often crumbling, retreat.
December 2006
The flavours of
temptation
The list of culinary temptations in Sicily is
long, but the most seductive – and perhaps most profuse – of all has to be
gelati, in all its evocative flavours and colours. We managed to ignore the
gelaterias on just about every corner for more than a day. Then we could resist
temptation no longer and decided to share an ice cream as a pre-dinner
appetizer. The chocolate encrusted biscuit cono with two bolos of
gelati flavours melted like sweet pleasure on our tongues. As punishment for
our rich indulgence, rather than whet our appetite, our ‘appetizer’ ruined it.
We steered clear of the gelati genie until the laidback mood of Syracuse
lured us down the path of temptation once more.
Sicily also serves up decent pasta and other
Italian staples. Interestingly, in Palermo, it seemed to us, most of the city’s
pizzerias are run by Tunisians. In Sicily, you can often build your own plate.
For instance, at a grill we ate at in Catania, you order each piece of meat
individually and also order antipasti as accompaniments. We discovered that
Sicily, contrary to the eulogies we hear about the fabled Mediterranean diet,
suffers from a major obesity problem – which was confirmed to us by an Italian
friend.
In Siracusa, we dug up a tastefully decorated
organic restaurant which was run by two sisters and had a slow dining policy of
preparing all its dishes from scratch. It is located on a fairly secluded
narrow side street in the old town and we enjoyed the intimacy of the setting,
with the darkened and silent town providing an ideal backdrop to our
conversations.
Like in Italy as a whole, coffee is one area
where you can rarely go wrong. Wherever you sip an espresso or cappuccino, it
is almost certainly bound to be of a decent quality. Of course, you have to be careful
of the Italian etiquette of when you can actually consume the various caffeine
concoctions.
It reminded me of our coffee experience in
Ethiopia which was always good, whether it was a macciato sipped on a roof-top terrace or traditional home-roasted coffee in a
local family’s mud hut. Katleen and I speculated as to how much Italy had
influence its one-time colony in Abyssinia and vice-versa. Ethiopia undoubtedly
has the older coffee tradition, given that coffee was first known there and in
Ethiopia, but I suspect much of the modern innovation in coffee comes from
Italy – and so that it was one of the few things colony and coloniser truly
shared.
Even in a lowly station bar, one can get a good
blend. Incidentally, at one station bar, as I was ordering a couple of coffees
as we kicked our heels waiting for our train, an old woman was shocked when she
heard I was not an Italian and asked me in bewilderment: “No Italiano?!” My
confirmation of her suspicion did not stop her from asking me where I came from
and telling me about her pilgrimage to Jerusalem, seeing as it’s in the
neighbourhood.
When I was a kid, it was usually older people
who tended to be fat, although we did have a certain number of overweight kids
in each year, who often dreaded PE lessons because of the embarrassment of
stripping in front of their peers. In some parts of the world, the young have
caught up and surpassed their elders.
In the student haven of Catania, we came across
an entirely different type of fleshpot than one would expect among the young
and unattached. Most students seemed to be at least slightly overweight, and
many were obese. This contrasted with the image of the slim Italian youth
popular in northern Europe. And for children, the curve seemed to be even more
extreme.
ã2006
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