By nature, we are hunter-gatherers. (Pat hunts. David gathers. He usually has the extra space in his luggage.) We rarely venture anywhere without returning home with some of the tastes of the trip.
This series about foodstuffs to bring home is usually entitled ‶What to buy in a supermarket in ….″ But apart from the capita city of Palermo, we didn’t see many supermarkets. We ended up buying foodstuffs in the public open-air markets, small delis, and in specialty shops. Shopping from individual vendors on the street turned out to be much more fun than scouring the supermarket shelves. Over the course of three weeks we ended up with quite a haul. Fitting it into our Ryan Air-friendly luggage was a challenge.
One item we did find in a neighborhood supermarket was anneletti pasta. Truly a Sicilian specialty, the ring-shaped pasta features extensively in Palermo-area dishes. And it was key to the holiday season baked pasta we featured here recently (hungrytravelers.com/sicily-rings-in-easter-with-baked-pasta/).
Of course, a lot of what we purchased never made the trip home. We bought a half kilo of Bronte pistachios from the market early in the trip. They sustained us for more than a week. All the fruits and vegetables, of course, were purchased for consumption on the spot. Ditto the salami and sausages. US Customs especially frowns on meat products, so we didn’t even try to bring some in. (For more detail, see our post on bringing food through Customs: hungrytravelers.com/2024-update-on-bringing-food-through-us-customs/)
And then there was the matter of cheese
Sicily’s signature cow’s milk cheeses are Provolone and Cacciocavallo. They are both pretty mild. But the island’s masterpiece cheese is Pecorino Siciliano D.O.P., especially the Stagionata, or very aged variety. We were in Sicily for three weeks, and we went through two large wedges with cheese and fruit for lunches. We did buy a vacuum-sealed wedge to bring home. The Sicilian Pecorino has all the intensity and nuttiness of aged Parmigiano-Reggiano, plus the slight funk characteristic of sheep’s milk cheeses. We wish we’d bought a bigger wedge and jettisoned a few pair of socks so we could slip it into our luggage.
Local flavor specialties were our aim
We did narrow our focus to things we either can’t get at home or which are more reeasonably priced in Sicily. The seafood cuisine of the island tends to celebrate tuna. No part of the tuna is more prized than bottarga, essentially tuna caviar. Although we couldn’t bring home fresh bottarga, we were intrigued to find dried albacore bottarga packed with salt in small jars. It’s an experiment waiting to happen, but we expect it will serve as an accent flavor the way anchovies do. Likewise, we also purchased a bag of Sicilian capers packed in salt. Only rarely can we get them at home.
Keeping with the local flavors theme, we bought a big bag of Sicilian oregano from the herbs and spice table at a market and we purchased a half kilo of extraordinary Sicilian pine nuts. Pine nuts from the Mediterranean stone pine have become hard to find in the U.S. or extremely expensive when we can find them. Cheaper pine nuts from China have pushed them out of the market, apparently. The pine-y intensity of the Sicilian pine nuts is worth the extra price, which mostly reflects the intense hand labor involved in gathering and processing them. Market vendors know that the flavor will immediately win over any doubters, so they offer small tastes with the strong expectation of making a sale.
Every souvenir and food specialty shop in Sicily seems to sell bars of chocolate from the town of Modica, which began processing cacao beans in the 17th century. We restrained ourselves until we reached the town during our last week. Paying a visit to Antica Dolceria Bonajuto (the oldest chocolate maker in town), we sampled several different flavors and bought a few bars for ourselves and as gifts to folks back home.
Every time we take a bite of the rich dark chocolate, we will flash back to sitting at a caffe in the sun and sipping cups of thick Modica hot chocolate.
