The best-known specialties in Palermo come from the street food tradition, such as panino con la milza, a sandwich with slices of calf’s spleen and lung fried in lard; you’ll find it schiettu, plain, or maritatu, with the addition of slivers of caciocavallo cheese or ricotta. Other delicacies include panelle, savory fritters made with chickpea flour, and crocchè, fried potato croquettes sometimes sold in a sandwich. And then of course there are the arancine, breaded and fried balls of rice, filled with meat sauce, peas and caciocavallo cheese, or with cubed ham and melted mozzarella.
A tasty typical lunch might begin with traditional local starters such as caponata, fried pieces of eggplant cooked in a sweet and sour tomato sauce with celery, capers, onion and crushed green olives. You can also try mussu and carcagnòlu, boiled beef offal seasoned with lemon, or a salad with oranges and sardines. Mussu and carcagnòlu are more common as street food, which you’ll find in food stalls scattered around the city, mainly in the Old Town and the working-class neighborhoods.
As for first courses, the characteristic anelletti al forno is well worth trying; it’s a sort of ring-shaped pasta with a sauce made of chopped meat, tomatoes and peas which is baked. Another common dish is pasta con le sarde, spaghetti with sardines, pine-nuts and wild fennel. If you’d like something vegetarian, I can recommend pasta chî vròcculi arriminàti, with cauliflower, pine-nuts, raisins and breadcrumbs.
Palermo’s best known main course is probably sarde a beccafico, sardines baked with a mix of breadcrumbs, chopped garlic and parsley, raisins, pine-nuts, salt, pepper and olive oil. A tasty alternative is arrosto impanato alla palermitana, which is not actually a roast, as the name implies, but a meat cutlet seasoned with olive oil, covered in breadcrumbs and then fried.
Make sure you treat yourself to dessert with some of the famous cannoli siciliani, filled with ricotta; cassata, a sponge cake covered with almond paste, ricotta and candied fruit, or frutta di martorana, marzipan shaped like pieces of fruit.
An interesting fact: did you know the world’s best-selling dessert originated here in Palermo? A chef from the city, Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli, is known as the “father of gelato”, and you’ll find plenty of places that make their own in all kinds of flavors and for all tastes. If you’re a fan of pistachio, make sure you try the variety from Raffadali, a worthy rival of the better-known Bronte pistachio.
What else can I say but… buon appetito!
