Sicilian Spirit

I can’t stop thinking about Sicily, and in particular, about Anna’s mom’s homemade tomato sauce. That sauce alone sums up the two themes that keep coming back to mind when I think about the trip and the Sicilian spirit: hospitality and resourcefulness.

We travelled to Sicily from Bologna along with our friends Anna and Nick, who were visiting from Pasadena. Anna’s mom Teresa is Italian, originally from Sicily, and her dad Macy is from the States. After years of living abroad, her parents retired in Sicily. For the first few days of our trip, we all stayed at their home in Sciacca, which is along the Southwestern coast.

Anna’s parents welcomed us just like family. In fact, we were welcomed into the whole network of family and friends during our short visit there. The first evening we went to a 1^st birthday party for a baby in the family. There were around 30 guests, and the family and friends quickly learned our names and made an effort throughout the night to get to know us and look out for us to make sure we were included. Their hospitality was certainly reflected in the food, and many of the relatives asked us if we had made sure to try everything and encouraged us to have more. The dinner buffet included various salads with vegetables and shrimp, octopus, and beef. There were various types of couscous and pasta dishes, arancini (risotto balls), as well as cutlets of swordfish. The dessert included watermelon, lemon granita, mulberry granita, and a huge birthday cake with a light chocolate mousse.

On the second night, we were invited to Anna’s family friends’ Sina and Michele’s farm house to learn to make pizza in their wood-burning oven. Once again, we received an impressively warm welcome and were quickly integrated with the family. Michele gave us a tour of the farm, where they grow a wide array of crops, ranging from grapes and citrus to eggplants and broccolini. He explained that it is better for the soil to grow an assortment and to rotate the crops, and having a variety also allows the family to rely on the produce for their own household.

Many of the pizza ingredients, such as the eggplant and tomatoes, came straight from the farm. Michele and Sina sent us home with more homemade pizza than we knew what to do with, urged us to come back and visit again, and even called us later in the week to wish us a happy wedding anniversary.

At Anna’s family’s house, her parents spent much of the days cooking specialties for us which highlighted their local produce. Macy and Teresa have a grove of olive trees on their property, and they use the olives to produce their own olive oil each year, which they use exclusively in their kitchen. They also make their own tomato sauce from local tomatoes when they are in season, and freeze enough to use later in the year as well. I can’t stop thinking about that sauce. On the first day, Teresa made a simple pasta with her sauce, topped with sautéed eggplant and parmesan cheese. It was so good that it has been on my mind regularly for over 3 weeks now, and I can assure you that I will never forget it. A simple dish of this nature would not be memorable without the homemade sauce.

Sicilians make amazing use of what grows on the island, and Teresa said that friends are constantly giving her some of what they grow in their own yards. Caper plants seem to be crawling out of cracks almost like weeds, and these capers are a central ingredient in the local cuisine.

Even the jasmine and cactus plants which are ubiquitous are used for desserts: here are the plants growing around town, and here is a granita we had with the flavors jasmine and cactus fruit.








Food is prepared resourcefully, and with love. Even on the day where we went to make pizza for dinner, Anna’s parents made eggplant parmesan to take to the party, as the time was short and they wanted to make sure we had a chance to try it. Hands down this was the best eggplant parmesan we have ever tasted, and in fact it was nothing like what I have tried in the past. Macy also made several trips to local bakeries to bring home specialties that they wanted us to try, including cannoli and almond cookies.



On the day we went to sightseeing to the temples in Agrigento, Teresa packed us a big picnic lunch, and she did the same for us the day we left so we would have something to eat on the bus. Mind you they fed us a wonderful, abundant lunch with all of the courses right before we left, so the picnic for later really wasn’t necessary, but rather another thoughtful gesture.




We received so much hospitality that it extended beyond even those we met directly. After talking with Paul about his distant relatives from Puglia, Teresa promptly called her friend who lives in the town where Paul’s grandfather was born to see if she knows any Venturas. She didn’t offhand, but made a few calls to Venturas from the phone book and has even visited City Hall twice now to help us locate Paul’s family. This friend has now offered to have us visit her in Puglia. The hospitality is still continuing on!

It could be easy to think that we just received this type of hospitality just because we were with our good friends Anna and Nick at their family’s home. However, consider the following which happened later in our trip: the man who worked at the desk of the hotel offered to drive us to the train station in his own car after his shift ended, the man selling watermelon insisted that his melon was a gift because it was our last night in Sicily, and woman who owned the restaurant where we had lunch one day brought us 2 extra courses to try, on the house, and then only charged us for a fraction of the things we actually did order.



Anna summed it up perfectly when she said, "Sicilians may not have a lot, but they love to share what they do have."

I hope Paul and I can show some Sicilian spirit at our house here in Bologna and beyond, and can’t wait to go back some day, hopefully again with Anna and Nick, to learn even more.