Sicily foodie tour. Local cousine: what to eat in Sicily?

Sicily is a unique region in Italy. This island combines an unimaginable variety of cultures and reflects the history of many peoples who conquered this tidbit at different times. Of course, this has led to a huge wealth and variety in cooking. Sicily has a huge number of home-made farms, vineyards, plantations, and small bio-industries. Farmers carefully monitor the quality of their products, because this is their pride and prestige all over the world. What to eat in Sicily? Be sure to include these dishes in your foodie tour.

The cuisine is slightly different in each region of Sicily. For example, the traditional appetizer arancino, a rice ball with delicious fish, meat or vegetables, originally from Palermo, will have different taste in Messina and Syracuse. By all means add this dish to the list of your culinary program and foodie tour in Sicily. Arancino was created in the period of Arab domination, which goes from the first to the secolo.

The next dish that is definitely worth a try is Parmigiana Siciliana. The main ingredient of Parmigiana are aubergines, a vegetable today widespread on the tables of Sicilian homes but arrived in Italy in the third century thanks to Arab traders who brought them to Sicily by importing them from India.

Along with parmigiana, caponata is a must-have dish on the menu of every Sicilian restaurant. It is a sweet and sour vegetable dish, a set of fried vegetables, almost always eggplant, seasoned with tomato sauce, celery, onion, olives, capers and a sauce of sugar and vinegar. Caponata keeps a story of Sicily, between perfumes, ingredients and traditions different from city to city, from family to family. There are at least 35 known variants, to which are added the Neapolitan interpretations with fish, in addition to the French (the famous Ratatouille) and Greek.

At your lunch time try another dish with such a popular Sicilian eggplant - Pasta ala Norma. It is a dish with typical Mediterranean flavors. The recipe is attributed to the city of Catania, so much so that it is the symbol of Catania cuisine, although numerous variations of pasta with sauce prepared with eggplant were certainly already widespread throughout the south before the official birth of the Catania dish.

Don't miss our next post about Sicilian and Italian cousine!