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10/08/2007 Archived Entry: "Sciacca, Sicily"

After Mazara del Vallo, we went to Sciacca, a city on the south coast of Sicily famous for its salted anchovies. At least that’s what I thought because the salted anchovies that I buy in New York come from Sciacca. Friends who’ve been there told me to not bother with the city, that’s there’s nothing there to see, except one: Joe (Giuseppe) Falco, the young managing director of Bond 45, the restaurant on W. 45th St. off of Times Square. He was born in Sciacca, or maybe it is his parents who were born in Sciacca, and he does this eyeball swoon every time I mention the place.

One day I will give Sciacca it’s due. It looks like a comfortable place to live, a nice small city on a ridge that curves around beautiful seacoast. It is famous for its sandy beaches and its thermal baths. I was there for only one afternoon, but I bet if I stayed a few days, I’d fall in love with the town. It has very nice modern and old housing mixed together in the center of town, and good shops, including many artisan workshops, indicating it is a town of economic substance. It also has some beautiful churches, etc., and an ancient ceramic tradition that has continued to this day. I am a sucker for ancient ceramic traditions. I even love well-done reproduction ceramics, as I can’t possibly afford to buy anything very old, although this doesn’t stop me from inquiring about prices in antique shops. If I’d had any room left in my suitcases (yes, plural), I would have bought some beautiful pieces that I found. I happened across a very good potter with many things that I coveted. I had a nice chat with him, too, and he taught me a little about that ancient ceramic tradition, which ones are the old designs and shapes. It was one of those travel experiences I treasure.

Here’s another in Sciacca: I had a chat about food with the young female owner of a bar on the main square, Piazza di Scandaliato, and I also talked to an old man (okay, a man who was somewhat older than I am) who was standing at the edge of the piazza, which is on a rocky height overlooking the sea. The woman had just constructed what we would call a hero sandwich, on a loaf of bread about two feet long. She said it was for six or seven people. This was the first time I’ve seen such a heavily filled and large sandwich in Italy. She said it was normal, however. This discussion opened the door for me to talk to her about local food. Meanwhile she was buy scolding her five-year-old son who was demanding too much of her attention for her to talk to me, which she clearly wanted to do. She, like practically everyone in the south, said pasta with tomato sauce was the basic dish of Sciacca, but when pressed to go beyond that, she added that the town dotes on pasta with fresh anchovies, wild fennel, and a bit of tomato, distinguishing it from the Palermo version of pasta con sarde, on the north coast, which has no tomato, and the Catania version, on the east coast, which is based on tomato.

The older man was standing around waiting for his wife who was doing some errand-type shopping in a nearby pharmacy and a housewares store. I asked him about the anchovies. Yes, he said, there are several big anchovy packers in Sciacca. Yes, Agostino-Recca, the one whose fish I buy in New York packed in salt in large cans, is a big one. Most people in Sciacca prefer to eat fresh anchovies, however. They have so many.

He also confirmed what the young woman in the bar said, that pasta con sarde is the big dish of Sciacca, and added that it is usually made with raisins and pine nuts, too. There’s that North African influence again. In fact, the Saracens, the name Italians give to North Africans, settled in Sciacca in the 9th century, and the name of the city comes from the Arabic name for it.

I find that most Italians light up when you ask them about their food traditions. They may be taken aback when you, a total stranger and foreigner, speaking their language haltingly at best, as I do, asks them about their most typical dishes, or what they ate for lunch and dinner the day before, but the questions are great ice breakers. It is often all it takes to make a southern Italian open up, and even tell you personal things.

At this point, I was dying to eat pasta con sarde, and fortunately, it was a specialty of the restaurant that Joe Falco sent me to: Paolo Mandracchio’s Trattoria La Vecchia Conza, which is just down the street from the main architectural event in Sciacca, the Palazzo Steripinto. In Italian, a palazzo is not a palace in our sense. It is just a large residence, which could be for one family, especially in the days when it was built, but more likely is divided into apartments, as this one is now. A modern apartment house is a palazzo, too.

Palazzo Steripinto is, as you can see in the photo I have linked you to above, a large square building with what the guide books call a “rusticated” façade. In this case, rusticated means that the surface of the building is made up of pyramidal shaped stone blocks, all pointy and dangerous looking, exactly like ones on the giant church of Gesu Nuovo in Naples, which actually started out as a fortress-palace before the Jesuits turned it into a Baroque church. The building is not well-cared for but there were some other attractive buildings on the street, and there is a simple bar across the street in a small piazza. We rested there, taking in the local scene, taking account of who walked into and out of the villa, me drinking a cappuccino, Bob a Coke. Not a bad way to spend 20 minutes.

La Vecchia Conza was very good. The bucatini con sarde was perhaps the best of the trip, but the recipe I left with was for the dessert that Bob ordered and from which I stole a few tastes. It was a layer of sponge cake, topped with a layer of pistachio ricotta cream, then a layer of plain ricotta cream studded with chocolate chips. Paolo was very generous in describing in detail how to make it, but I have to work it out when I get home – with American ricotta, with the pistachio paste that I will have to make from scratch, etc. I know it won’t be a hard thing to reproduce, but I bet it will take a few tries before I get it just right.