Among baronial symphonies and conventual sweetness

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In the same way as in an overture of a theatrical presentation, the Home Food curtain rises this time over the Southern point of our boot, more precisely in the city of Palermo.

With a face for the most part Baroque, the Sicilian capital has known, over the centuries, a balanced mix of Arabic cultures and European tastes, as is testified by the characteristic lines of the Arab-Norman art, a hybrid of sinuous decoration, Moorish arcs and hemispheric domes which embellish the fundamental structure of the Latin and Greek cross.

This event, prepared inside the sunny and welcoming attic where Annamaria lives, is an unique occasion to discover the artistic and architectural wealth of the historical centre, living at the same time in the warmth of a true Sicilian family.

The love for her homeland and for good living has prompted our Cesarina to make herself an expert depositary of the culinary knowledge of the area, as well as a profound exponent of the many gastronomic expressions of the cookery of Palermo (from relatively simple notes that try to copy the Lords' table, from its success with its tasty dishes to the refined ancient Baronial symphonies.

The antipasto of Smoked Swordfish and Tuna is a personal elaboration of a famous salad of western Sicily, where instead of the usual herring Annamaria uses instead tuna and swordfish, thinly cut and rolled around the vegetables (fennel, green olives, spring onions....) served with a endive salad.

The second dish arrives at table, the Stuffed Turkey with pasta and meat sauce of tacchino, a lovely idea, but something that was only for the fortunate table guests of a young cook that operated during the first part of the last century, in an aristocratic house in the province of Messina.

The Caponata is served in its Winter version, with artichokes , apples and pumpkin , in which the Baronial kitchen foresaw the use of, other than vegetables and fruit, also boiled meatballs or, in special cases, medallions of lobster. It was all flavoured with, as in the aubergine variant, by a sauce of onion, celery, olives and capers.

The Cuscus di pistacchi , whose recipe is still now secret, was created in the monastery of the Spirito Santo of Agrigento and belongs to conventual cookery, almost exclusively devoted to sweets. The existence of three different types of Sicilian cookery gives reason to the fact that, before the advent of the Swiss pasticcerias, sweets were bought in the convents, through a revolving window that separated the buyer from the saleswoman, the nun!

In closing this not only just a culinary journey but also a trip through the history and the origins of an extraordinary and generous region, an elegant traditional dish is proposed: the Gelatina di arance , better known as Gelo d'arancia