Sicilian Odyssey by Francine Prose Page B

and all. Part of what makes this simple meal taste so especially good is that it has been prepared with such affection, and for us alone (or almost alone). It is the fulfillment of a certain sort of travel fantasy: the Sicilian mama who cooks for you, just as she would cook for her own children.
    We thank the Signora profusely, we tell her it was the perfect meal for una giornata brutta, we take her picture, she insists we go out on the rainswept terrace to look at the stormy ocean, she swears that it’s usually beautiful, bello, she points to the poster on the wall that makes Scopello look like a beach in the Bahamas. We assure her that it doesn’t matter, that’s how good the food was. She wipes her hands on her apron.
    “Tutto semplice,” she says. “Tutto naturale.”
     
    But of course it’s naturale, semplice. That’s the secret of Sicilian food, it’s all in the ingredients, the very best, the very freshest elements prepared with the minimum of needless complication, pretension, or fuss, and with the maximum personal style. The Sicilian culinary palette, the vocabulary of its kitchen is—as any Sicilian cook will tell you—a relatively limited one. Olive oil, garlic, flour, eggs, ricotta, fish on the coast, meat inland. But every cook prepares every one of those same dishes just a little differently so that no two tomato sauces are the same, one cook’s pasta con sarde (that sublime, uniquely Sicilian concoction of sardines, pine nuts, raisins, fennel, and bread crumbs) will never be mistaken for another’s. It’s thought that the sweet, salty, and sour flavors in pasta con sarde are (like the regional passion for ice cream and sweets) a legacy of the Saracens. Indeed, much of Sicilian cuisine is the fortunate result of centuries of foreign invasion.
    In her cookbook, La Cucina Siciliana di Gangivecchio, Wanda Tornabene remarks that the “painful defeats” suffered by her country are responsible for the variety of its cuisine. “Each culture—from the Greeks, Romans and Arabs to the French and Spanish—has left behind its own imprint on our eating habits.” The Greeks brought their grapes, olives, and honey, the Romans their wheat and grains, the Saracens their “love of all things sweet, from sweet-and-sour dishes to sauces and candies.” Moreover, the characteristic dishes of each part of the island have been heavily influenced by the culture that dominated that region; thus the Arabs bequeathed couscous to the citizens of Trapani and western Sicily.
    To understand why Sicilian food is so good, just visit the markets. Whenever we arrive in a new place, the market is frequently our first destination, because each market is unique and tells you something about the character of the city. Located in the semicircular arcade of the Piazza Mercato del Pesce, with the ocean just behind it, Trapani’s market is small, sweet, and low-key, though it’s the only one in which the vendors call out to us and expend some energy on trying to sell us something. Perhaps it’s because the city gets so few tourists in midwinter—perhaps they imagine we’ve moved into town and might actually be able to do something with a half kilo of monkfish liver or a chunk of pressed bottarga, tuna roe.
    It’s partly because of architecture that the fish market in Catania seems so raw and primal that it’s almost scary; it’s the kind of place that you hope your vegetarian friends—the ones who still eat fish—never get around to visiting. A sort of balcony or balustrade runs along one side of the market, from which you can look down on the action below—which, from that angle, suggests a killing floor or the site of some ancient, bloody sacrificial ritual being enacted by members of a secret cult or guild. The faces of the vendors are reddened by the wind, their hands scarred and thickened. The smell is powerful, to say the least, and the light takes on a silvery-blue cast as it shines on, and is reflected by, the