June 23, 2010
Peaches grown on the lavic slopes of Mount Etna! They’re called pesche tabacchiere, and love poems should be scribbled to them.
I gobble them up, consoling myself after the new bathtub leaks (again) and the painter calls to say he cannot come (again).
They’re flat, with a juicy pale-yellow flesh. The size of mini-donuts, but even sweeter. They remind you of how things must have tasted in Eden. In fact, the fruit vendor says they were the original peach. “How peaches were,” he says, “when they were born.”
I don’t know if he has scientific evidence for this, but I am completely convinced that this is the way peaches—and everything else—tasted in Eden.
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April 2, 2010
Easter morn in Modica: The resurrected Christ threads his way through back alleys, seeking, seeking. The black-shrouded Virgin comes forth, searching, searching.
High noon: Bells peal. Mobs mill. Families hang from balconies. Mother and Son reunite. Her black mantle slips off to reveal a cape the color of a Sicilian sky. Wooden arms swing open. Doves fly. Statues kiss.
12:05: The crowd, warmed by the spectacle and the Easter sun, kisses, too. Then home they go to the family extravaganza to fatten themselves on ricotta ravioli, Easter lamb pies, sweet breads, salads, marzipan lambs, ricotta-rich cassata, and everything else you can think of.
Buona Pasqua!
Have you seen a moving Easter tradition in Sicily or elsewhere?
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January 19, 2010.
In the mud-walled winter town of Santa Fe . . .
I dream of a Sicilian spring.
     
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October 26, 2009
It’s persimmon season in Sicily. The hawkers are plying town with truckloads of ripe persimmons—fruit of the gods, according to the Greeks, and guaranteed, according to my hawker, to put a blush on your cheeks, thicken your hair, double your energia.
The roving vendor parks his truck smack dab in front of my portone and starts shrieking “Cachi!” (pronounced like khaki, but with the accent on the last syllable in Sicilian). Housewives rush out in their slippers.
Persimmons have scared me ever since my husband and I each yanked a pretty yellow fruit off a Montenegrin tree a quarter century ago and greedily bit into the under-ripe flesh. One never forgets that nasty cotton-mouth taste.
But I’m learning. I bought these four persimmons yesterday. The two in the foreground are not yet ripe, the vendor warned. Non mangiare adesso!
They need to turn from a yellowish/pumpkin-y color to a reddish/tomato-y hue, (like the two in the background), and they should develop a black spot or two to indicate they’re ready to eat, or so said my Sicilian expert.
I’ve just eaten the persimmon with the black spot on it, and it was so incredibly sweet and soft I practically drank it down. Liquid fruit. The opposite of cottony.
Pears from Bronte—a town on the flanks of Mt. Etna and famous for its pistachios—are also in season. They’re tiny and soft and sweet and I eat three at a time.
October 12, 2009
Fog comes like a ghost to Ragusa Ibla some mornings in autumn. It shrouds the village in soft silence and mystery—or should I say more mystery, for there’s something inherently secretive and mystifying about Sicilian hill towns.
That otherworldly feeling evaporates well before mid-morning in Ibla, when the sun comes burning through. The ghost may settle much longer in the low places, though.
My neighbors tell me that the fog is new, that it first rolled in when la diga, the dam, was built outside of town several years ago. The mist lifts off the water of Santa Rosalia Lake, a beautiful place on the Ragusa Ibla-Giarratana road (SS194). I recommend driving along this charming, curvy little road (but not when it’s foggy!) and stopping at the lake for its wonderful vistas. I hear the fishing is good too.
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All photos and text on BaroqueSicily are Copyright of Jann Huizenga ©2009-2015, unless otherwise noted. Material may not be copied or re-published without written permission. All rights reserved.
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