Category: Flavors

Postcard from Siracusa, Sicily: Bellomo Palace and, for saint’s sake, always eat two of this dessert

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Above: A representation of the story of Adam and Eve eating the forbidden apples, Museo Regionale di Palazzzo Bellomo

A stark façade conveys the 12th-century origin of the Bellomo Palace. The interior spaces, however, reflect several centuries of architectural alterations, much like the centuries of regional Sicilian art housed within. Benedictine monks occupied the palace in the 18th century, merging it and an adjacent palazzo into one compound.

The Risorgimento, the ongoing unification of the Kingdom of Italy, represented a disaster for many Catholic religious orders. In Sicily, the government seized property and buildings, including this monastery in 1866. In 1940, the government repurposed the compound as a museum, with the 1866 confiscated religious art forming a major portion of its collection. The Bellomo underwent substantial renovation in 2004.

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Postcard from Siracusa, Sicily: Celebrating the bounty of the sea

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Above: Spaghetti a scoglio at Cod da Saretta

It must be frustrating to a traveler who only wants meat to visit Sicily where seafood dominates. For us, that was heaven. We were surprised we didn’t frequently order some of the dishes we expected to devour almost daily. Too many other temptations popped up on menus.

The first was pizza. Every city anywhere we have been, we are always on the lookout for Neapolitan-style pizzas. We even eat pizza in Austin once a week.

But despite the fact that Sicily has great pizzas exactly the style we love, we only consumed about three in two months. One reason was that the best restaurants and pizzerias, perhaps an over-simplified generalization, only offer it at night; the ones featuring it at lunch time tend to be tourist-oriented and often not as good. We tend to eat a main meal at lunch, one so substantial that’s it for the day. No room for late-night pizzas.

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Postcard from Siracusa, Sicily: Street Sweets

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Above: Il maestro di croccante

Of course, there’s gelato. The single scoop pictured below is rich hazelnut from what many claim is the best gelateria on Ortigia, Gusto on Via Roma. But granita, an icy slush in a multitude of flavors, is found everywhere as well and is perhaps even more popular among the natives. The cupful below is caffe, sweetened black coffee; no cup of espresso needed that day.

An unusual habit in Sicily is that these are fair game as breakfast foods. It’s not at all uncommon for Sicilians to order a granita with brioche on the side or an unwieldy looking brioche split 3/4 of the way through and stuffed to overflowing with two scoops of gelato in the morning hours.

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