Pane ca Meusa
And other Street Food in Sicilia
You can get by in Sicilia eating the street food as long as you constantly cram some citrus into yourself and don’t mind gaining a fair bit of weight. Still, it’s not a diet that I’d recommend to friends for any length of time.
The above photo is Pane ca Meusa, a popular sandwich stuffed with fried beef spleen and grated caciocavallo cheese. Not for the faint of heart. (I took only a few bites before I gave myself an excuse not to finish – too high in cholesterol perhaps).
I have a wee bit of apprehension when it comes to street food, especially any with meat, but I’ve been eating the stuff steadily and only been caught once by an upset stomach the next day. That was after eating a fried sweet, Pignolata, little lumps of fried dough drenched in honey.
(But I make my own pignolata now, I found out how in Messina)
Panelle, Crocche and Rascature
I really like Panelle, chickpea flour patties, fried up in the street while you wait. Yum with a capital Y.
Panelle
Most of these street delicacies go into bread so that you have basically a sandwich of something fried. (I can remember putting potato cakes in bread slices years ago – same thing).
Fried carbohydrates in a roll, made to instantly gratify that empty spot which is making a nuisance of itself in your belly after you’ve trekked a few miles up and down the hilly streets.
These are more little fried things, like crocche, little rollups of mashed potatoes and parsley.
Of course, the crocche are winners in the Street Food Stakes.
I’m going to practice making some crocche myself when I get back into the swing of things in my own kitchen at home.
Fancy some fried scraps? Or rather, fried scrapes. Rascature translates as ‘scrapes’ and that’s exactly what they are. The scrapy bits left at the bottom of the fryer – they could be anything!
Wondering where the Goats Guts are? Stigghiola! Now these are like sausages (they look very much like sausages anyway), they’re intestines of goat. On the barbecue.
Stigghiola have an intensely backyard BBQ smell. The hint of burned meat, the enticing charcoal miasma, the underlay of salt and charred fat. If you’re an Australian you’ll know just what I mean.
In any case, they’re very tasty in bread. Piccante. Spiced with something piquant? Peppery, tart, spezia piccante, hot spice, but I don’t know what.
Will you join me in some Street Food in Sicilia?
