The Food Maven Diary
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Entry: From Trapani, Sicily
We took a very comfortable and cheap (less than $12) bus from Palermo to Trapani, which is only an hour-and-twenty-minute ride from the Teatro Politeama, a major landmark in the heart of Sicily's largest city, with the first twenty minutes merely stopping in Palermo for additional passenger pick ups.
I dosed off after about an hour and when I opened my eyes I was surprised to see that the sea was on what seemed like the wrong side of the bus, and I was faced with bank after bank of new and very austere six-story apartment houses, all exactly the same, all with their white metal Persiani shutters closed tight. Were the buildings so new that no one was living in them yet? Or was everyone just protecting themselves from the intense 11:30 a.m. sun. It looked like North Africa, not Italy. Only later did I read in a guide book that Trapani is, indeed, considered the most North African-like city in Italy. Depending on whom you ask and what you read, Tunisia is more or less only 140 miles away.
The sea was on the wrong side of the bus because Trapani is a scythe-shaped peninsula. Greek myth has is that Demeter dropped her scythe while desperately searching for her daughter Persephone. (I am not going to tell the whole story now.), and that is Trapani. I have now walked what Bob enjoys calling "the length and the breadth of the city." We've walked the small, mostly pedestrian-only streets of the old historic center, as well as down and around the modern, broad, straight-as-a-pin Via Fardella with its median island planted with gnarled trees and lined on both sides with one chic shop after another, all behind new sleek facades, or imitation old ones. I had to go all the way to the end of Fardella to find this gelateria that sells jasmine flavored gelato. After my 30-minute walk (one way) I was going to reward myself by eating an entire small cup, but I thought better of that. The diet! I am very proud that I merely took a taste and threw the rest away. I learned this from anorexic we recently had as a guest at Seliano. (Can you believe an anorexic went on an eating, drinking, cooking trip?) At any rate, I can attest to the fact that the peninsula is narrow enough even at its widest part for the two shore roads to be no more than one Manhattan avenue length apart, and sometimes as close as 50 feet. Look down a street and you can see, literally, from sea to shining sea.
At first, I was thinking the new block of plain-looking apartment houses must be public housing at the edge of the city, but almost all the new construction here, and a good deal of the old, are in the same plain, squared-off, unembellished style, all the color of sand – golden sand, pink sand, off-white sand, but sand any way you tint it. The boxy architecture is everywhere, which is what gives Trapani this North African air. And there are many North Africans living and working here, mainly Tunisians, although I hear that there are even more in Mazara del Vallo, down the coast, beyond Marsala, because Mazara, one of if not the most important fishing town in Italy, is where the work on fishing boats is. I knew that the main food specialty of Trapani is cous cous because of the Phoenician and Arab history of western Sicily, but I had no idea that the North African influences continue to run so deep.
There are some beautiful and grand 17th century Baroque palazzos (that's Italian for big residential buildings, not necessarily royal home) and churches in the historic center of Trapani, but that amounts to only a few streets with restaurants, cafes, and shops where the locals take their evening walks – the passegiata – and tourists find the action. I don't see many tourists here, and those that I do encounter tend to be French. The season is sort of over, but I don't think, in genereal, many foreigners come to Trapani. They go, where I will be going today, to Erice, the picturesque hilltop town above the city. Trapani is not for tourists, but it seems like a very nice place to live.
I came here mainly to soak up a feeling for Trapani, and to learn more about the specialties of this westernmost province of Sicily. To that end, I have been eating cous cous and pesto Trapanese every day, usually twice a day, and discovering other dishes.
Pesto Trapanese consists of almonds, garlic, basil, tomatoes (usually cherry tomatoes), and olive oil. I had previously eaten it several times in Palermo, including just the other day, but it has either been something dreadful or simply not interesting. Reading a zillion recipes in books back home, almost exclusively in Italian because it's not a well-disseminated recipe in English, I pieced together what I have been considering a very credible version, although it was nothing like anything I'd eaten so far in Sicily.
To my great satisfaction, I have finally confirmed that my recipe is about as good it gets, and it is perfectly traditional. Yes, I am patting myself on the back. I ate a version that was exactly the same as mine at Cucina Siciliana, a restaurant in Trapani for which just about everyone I talked to here has great respect. Owner-chef Pino Maggiore also confirmed what I have discovered, which is that you have to make the pesto the same day you are going to eat it. What was wrong with several that I've tried and hated was that they were old. The basil gets grey and bitter. The garlic oxidizes and becomes acrid. Feh!
Some other versions – in Palermo – haven't been pesto at all, but merely tomato sauce with a garnish of chopped almonds. At one famous place in Palermo – I would have to say famous for its clientele of important people, its attractive dining room, and its great service, not for its food per se – they served chunks of refrigerator-cold and very bland tomato with chopped almonds and torn basil on tiny shells with a garnish of fried eggplant. This was decidedly not pesto Trapanese. Who said you can't get a bad meal in Italy?
At Cantina Siciliana, Pino does, in fact, serve his pesto with half-moon slices of fried eggplant as a garnish, which he says is the genuine article. This was confirmed by one of those memorable travel experiences. I asked a middle-aged female clerk in a book store to direct me to the cookbooks. When I realized that she was much more familiar with the cookbooks than most clerks ever are, I knew she must be a good cook herself, or at least interested in food. It ends up she was the mother of the owner helping out on a Saturday when the regular clerk was off to the beach. We talked for about a half hour about the local food. She knew everything and rattled off recipes. Her version of pesto Trapanese is exactly the one you will find below, and the same as at Cantina Siciliana. But when I asked if the garnish of fried eggplant was traditional or something they merely do in restaurants (added value), she said, well, sometimes, instead of fried eggplant, people garnish the pesto with fried potatoes.
With all the time I have spent south of Rome over the last 12 years, I don't know why I hadn't noticed before last year how enamored southern Italians are of fried potatoes, what we call French fries and they call patatine. Actually, who doesn't love fried potatoes? My Belgian friend Nicolas Claes says fried potatoes are the national dish of his country, paired, as we well know in New York, with steamed mussels, and always eaten dipped in mayonnaise. (Nicolas is a master maker of mayonnaise, I have to say.)
Here's one: Although you may never have thought that fried potatoes are an appropriate topping for pizza, they are in the south of Italy, even in Naples, where the locals tend to be purists about pizza. Last year, for instance, I went out for pizza with my friends Chiara and Gennaro, who live in Ravello, on the Amalfi Coast, and sure enough, their five-year-old son, Mario, eats his pizza Margherita topped with patatine. I figured this was a kid thing, until I noticed adults all around me indulging in the same. And around the corner from my hotel here in Trapani, fried potato pizza is one of the many possibilities. This pizzeria, by the way, has an Arab name (I am forgetting what it is at the moment), and from my observation walking by it several nights in a row, the most popular item after the pizza appears to be meat kebabs, sandwiched on a roll with, what else, fried potatoes -- and mayonnaise. Is this Trapanese fusion food?
More on Trapani soon, especially the cous cous. For now, while it is still possible to get great cherry tomatoes at home, try my Pesto Trapanese. I have to say, even made with the cherry tomatoes (and so-called grape tomatoes) we can buy in the winter, it is a delicious pasta sauce, and easy when made in the food processor. If you want to be a purest and make it a more difficult recipe, pound the ingredients in a mortar with a pestle.
I like spaghetti with pesto Trapanese, but fusilli would be excellent, too. Here in Trapani it is often served on busiati, which are coils of fresh semolina-water pasta (no eggs) formed on metal rods. These are, in fact, a true type of fusili. The word refers to that metal rod, and busiati are very much like the factory-made fusili we buy in boxes at the supermarket.
Pesto Trapanese
(Trapani Pesto)
Serves 4 to 6
(Makes 1 1/2 cups
Enough to sauce 12 ounces to 1 pound of spaghetti or fusilli, or other long pasta)
3 ounces blanched almonds (about 2/3 cup)
2 large cloves garlic, peeled
1 cup firmly packed fresh whole basil leaves
1/2 teaspoon salt, or more to taste
1/2 pound very ripe cherry tomatoes, washed
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
12 to 16 ounces spaghetti or fusili
Grated pecorino served on the side (optional)
In a food processor fitted with the metal blade, combine the almonds and garlic. Process until very finely chopped.
Add the basil and salt. Process again until the basil is very finely chopped.
Add the tomatoes and oil and process one more time until the mixture is a fine paste. If desired, you can add a little more oil. Taste for seasoning and add more salt if necessary.
If desired, the pesto can be loosened up with a few tablespoons of pasta cooking water.
(I also had one version in which some extra cherry tomatoes were sautéed whole in olive oil, until the started to burst, then the pasta and sauce were tossed in the pan with the tomatoes with a few the addition of a couple of spoons of pasta cooking water.
Serve grated pecorino to additionally dress the pasta, if desired.
Note: The sauce is also delicious as a topping for bruschetta, or to dress hard-cooked eggs and/or boiled potatoes. It is also good on grilled lamb, steak, or chicken. If serving with lamb, you may want to substitute mint for all or part of the basil – but then it won't be traditional pesto Trapanese.
