Sicily VII - Veni! Mange!

The food in Sicily started out being a joy. However, every night we were faced with the same limited range of choices. Each dish would be soaked in its own distinctively flavored olive oil - but they were the same basic dishes nonetheless. Usually it was either pasta, pizza, or swordfish. A Chicago acquaintance of mine once stopped talking to me when I ordered swordfish at a restaurant. He was a vegetarian and worried about the plight of swordfish in particular. I thought of him every time I guiltily scarfed down yet another serving of swordfish – but usually that was the only solid “meat” offered. Other than that, there would have been just calamari or clams or squid to wrestle with.

The pasta dishes were always more than plentiful and left me full. But after a while, we began to notice that we rarely were offered any fresh vegetables or fruit. How odd in this land known for its earthy abundance! But we rarely got any crunchy broccoli or cauliflower or – anything. Oh, tiny bits of broccoli would appear sometimes in the pasta dishes. More often, it was bits of eggplant. Eggplant was ubiquitous. Even the salads we got tended to be limp leafs of head lettuce with a few shavings of this and that mixed in – just the typical sort of salads you find as a side dish in greasy spoon restaurants here.

So where had all the fresh vegetables gone? I remembered that in the Durrell book about Sicily I’d read in preparation for this trip – that author had similarly written about the repetitious meals. He had reported just pasta and rice – pasta and rice – over and over every night. When I read this, I thought it couldn’t be true. Italian cuisine is world-famous! But while each dish we were served was individually delicious – it really tended to be just pasta – and more pasta. How did all the Italians remain so svelte when their main course is always - just another heaping dish of pasta?

The only enforcement I came across in Sicily though involved eating. Usually anything goes there in the arenas of love, traffic, or law. But I had glanced through one of Rick Steve’s travel books on Italy before launching off, and I’d read how many Italian cafes have a strict dual price list. One price is for counter service; the other price allows you to sit at a table. But I forgot about this little duplicity one day when I ventured into a café myself. I unthinkingly ordered a cheaper-looking offering and headed towards the outdoor café with it in hand. A waiter screamed, “No! Is no permitted!” - and rushed over and blocked my way. Then I remembered! My cheaper price had just bought me the right to stand inside at the café’s counter and munch there.

Some members of my tour group drifted into the café a few minutes later, bought some brioches and sat down. Then they espied me and called out for me to join them. But I was in the embarrassing position of having to decline. I called out to them, “I can’t. I just paid for counter service. I have to stay standing up here.” I felt like a naughty child relegated to the dunce’s corner in third grade.