The Rhine, Rome and Sicily

After 3 nights in the chaos and heat of Palermo, we arrived at the epicentre of Sicilian food culture, the Anna Tasca Lanza Culinary School. Sicily is shaped like a triangle and our travels have taken us to the eastern point near Mount Etna, near the southern tip to Ortigia and to the western tip at Trapani. We are now in the geographical centre of the island, near Vallelunga, on an old 19th century farm called Case Vecchie. The 3 of us are here with 6 other guests for 4 nights immersing ourselves in Sicilian food culture.

The Lanza family that owns the estates (vineyards) and the farm is an historically wealthy, landowning family - therefore Sicilian nobility. Sicily was ruled by monarches in the past but the official monarchy across all of Italy was not recognized after 1946 when Italy became a Republic. However, the title of Marchessa and Marquise are still used by this family. They even have a family crest that is embossed on all of the dishes …..as you do when you are royalty. I wonder what our family crest would be - probably something with a beer mug . Today the current owner Fabrizia Lanza (daughter of the famous Anna Tasca Lanza) came to say hello and join us for lunch. She was very regal and presided over lunch from the end of the long table explaining her food philosophy and dismissing the modern tendency to photograph everything we eat rather than using all of our senses to enjoy it. I quickly hid my phone. She stated that, “ We have never spoken so much about food and yet been more distant from our food.” Her second cookbook has just been released and it does have beautiful pictures. So someone’s taking photos!
On our first morning, a young gardener, Lucia, took us on a garden tour. She has a masters in fruit science with a focus on citrus plants. The garden is full of fruit trees including persimmons, quince, pomegranate, lemon and loads of vegetables and herbs. There are olive trees all around and an almond grove, that Tara and I came across on a walk. The area is surrounded by vineyards. We have enjoyed many types of wine from the family estates or land holdings located in terroir across Sicily.
Getting back to the food ——-We participated in 2 full morning cooking classes where we made our 4 course lunches using many local ingredients. We then ate our 4 course meals family style around a large table. Day 1, we made panelle ( a Sicilian fritter made from chickpea flour), pasta in the shape of cavatelli (shells), caponata (a popular dish making use of the abundant eggplants), and a dessert called cassata which incorporates almond paste, ricotta and cake. Our chef - Kyle - is from the US and married to an Italian. He and the other staff explain all the background about the food ingredients and what makes it typical to this area. The staff are warm and engaging and love to answer our many questions. The kitchen is fabulous and its been loads of fun to jump in to stir, chop and make the pasta. This is really farm to table cooking. I went into the garden with chef Kyle to grab some Sicilian celery and some parsley for the caponata. There are 3 ladies in the back kitchen scooping up all the dirty dishes and pots, serving the meals and setting tables etc. Yesterday’s menu was a pasta bake called tomboli ( meaning drum because that is it’s shape) that was stuffed not with meat ragu, as we would expect, but with a wild fennel/ mint sauce. We also made beer-battered stuffed zucchini blossoms, tuna meatballs in tomato sauce and a bianco mange or blanche mange as people might know it - a clear, milk pudding.
Some common ingredients include lots of onions (but little garlic). The Sicilians don’t favour garlic as it is seen as “low” or peasant food. Lots of cheese from sheep - ricotta, pecorina. Loads of mint and other herbs( interesting arab influences in the cooking here). Loads and loads of olive oil, anchovies, capers and salt. Also lots of nuts - pine nuts from the trees in the garden, almonds and pistachios, Enza, the baker at the school, has been keeping us fed with a steady flow of cookies, cakes and freshly baked bread. We get a lesson from her this afternoon. I wish I could somehow attach some of the wonderful smells from the kitchen because the pictures don’t do the food justice.
At night Chef Kyle makes our dinner and all of the meals are surprisingly vegetable focused with lots of fresh salads and various local greens. We’ve had only two meat dishes since arriving - a grilled lamb and some rabbit braised in wine last night. Beef and dairy from cows are less common here. The tomato paste and sauces are all homemade and bottled during the tomato harvest. The jams are made from the fruit of the surrounding trees.
On Tuesday afternoon we were taken to a nearby communal olive oil processing business run by a sharp Sicilian lady. The locals were coming in with their large bins of olives , dumping them in the main collector hopper and about 1/2 hour later the most beautiful, rich green olive oil poured out into their large plastic containers and off they drove, and the next farmer backed in to unload. Seems everyone has an olive orchard and the fruit is being harvested now so the place was really buzzing. We spent this morning with a local shepherd / cheesemaker, Filipo, and saw yesterday’s sheep milk go from liquid to curds and whey and finally new cheese. The curds were squeezed out and formed into rounds. Once more liquid has drained away, it will be sold locally as pecorino. The remaining whey was heated to make ricotta (meaning re-heated). It was fascinating to ask Filipo questions about the production (translation by the cooking school staff who speak English). Seems that the current production must be done using stainless steel, although it was recently all done using wooden screens / baskets and implements. The good bacteria gave the cheese additional flavours although - as you can imagine - it was not as safe.
The school/farm whee we are staying is in a beautiful, rural setting. Besides the hum of the farm machinery the place is quite peaceful until about 2 in the morning when the 3 roosters start crowing loudly. We’re not sure what sets them off but evidently the long-time vegetable gardener ,Giovanni , has a soft heart and won’t kill the roosters even though they do nothing productive. Tara and I were ready to strangle them after the first night!! We have access to a lovely swimming pool in the yard and the rooms are very comfortable. It’s not been all hard work in the kitchen and we’ve taken time for some walks and reading.
This has been a wonderful end to our Sicilian adventure. Sicily doesn’t have the ambiance of other parts of Italy that we’ve seen. In particular, when compared to areas in northern Italy, this is like night and day. Even the language - Sicilian - is different. I think we have seen more of the true Sicily here than over the past few weeks of travel - as enjoyable as that was. Sicilians are a very warm, proud and passionate people and according to one of our Palermo guides - just a little bit crazy! The economics of the island take many of them away but the people all seem to retain a strong bond to the island and the unique culture here. I can only think of Newfoundland as our Canadian analogy
Tomorrow the return trip begins. We are in Palermo overnight and may do some souvenir shopping. Saturday morning we say arrivederci to Tara who flies home to Ottawa via Munich. We head to Frankfurt to pick up our bike gear that we left there 3 weeks ago and fly home to Victoria on Sunday. It’s certainly time to get home but it has been another great adventure. Hope to see some of you very soon. Thanks for traveling with us!!
As they say in Sicily when leaving - “ciao, ciao, ciao”
Love Heather/ Mom xxxRead more