Flavours between Land and Sea
Just hinting at the local gastronomic tradition immediately evokes a triumph of flavours, aromas, varieties, which have few equals in the world and which come from what the land and the sea offer. In a virtual menu - starting with appetizers such as the sweet and sour and Arabic aubergine caponata, and the octopus salad, seasoned simply with celery, garlic and oregano, finishing with ricotta desserts - the proposal is wide and varied, and the choice always rewarded.
Ingredients, always at 0 km are fresh fish, "pizzutello" tomato, basil, red garlic, mountain oregano, bay leaves and the prince of condiments: the extra virgin olive oil. The green/silver olive groves, together with the orderly rows of vines, are the most widespread crops throughout the Erice area, the protagonists of the rural landscape, and there are many producers, both of EVO oil and excellent wines, who protect, continue and evolve an age-old tradition. A quality "officially" recognized by the many P.D.O oils, the "Valli Trapanesi" extra virgin olive oil, the red garlic from Nubia, the yellow melon from Paceco ... and the D.O.C. for red and white wines which, together with I.G.T. Terre Siciliane, offer a truly vast choice for variety and type.
The conservation of fish, based on Trapani sea salt, deserves a separate mention: from tuna, steamed, salted, put in oil, or dried in tuna products, such as the prized tuna egg, to preserved sardines and anchovies conserved in salt to be "recovered" when necessary, eliminating the excess salt and covering them with oil. "Poor" fish that become ingredients for first courses, in which they give flavour to vegetables and vegetables, but also protagonists: on a slice of durum wheat bread, made with sourdough dough, with a "crock" of fresh or dry pizzutello tomato, such as on the traditional Trapani pizza, the “rianata”, together with garlic, tomato, grated pecorino, and the sprinkling of oregano that gives it its name.
Also in this case, much is due to the civilizations that succeeded each other, from the Phoenicians, to which we owe the cultivation of the olive tree and the salt pans - this is also a cultivation, of the sea instead of the land - to the Arabs who introduced, among other things, the concept of sweet and sour, for example with almonds and sultanas also for salty, and, above all, the most celebrated and widespread dish of the Mediterranean: couscous. In the Trapani area, the name becomes "cùscusu" and the durum wheat semolina, "ncucciata" in grains, sprinkled with oil and steamed on bay leaves, is seasoned with an exceptional and fragrant seafood soup to which “poor” fish, seafood and prawns are added, according to family tastes and traditions. A widespread variant in the countryside of the hinterland is the one which sees cauliflower and pork used instead of fish, including the rinds and scented with cinnamon.
A simple but tasty local first pasta course like few others is: busiate with pesto Trapanese, here known as "pasta cu l’agghia" (pasta with garlic). The pasta is preferably fresh and in this format - the busiate are small strips of pasta wrapped in spirals on a woody stem called "buso" - is seasoned with a fresh pesto made from peeled tomatoes, plenty of peeled garlic, basil, extra virgin olive oil, and completed from almonds, all rigorously pounded in a wooden mortar.
When talking about local food and wine, ricotta cheese must be mentioned. Strictly from sheep, it is the basis of the most popular and loved desserts of the area: cannoli and cassatelle. The first, are found in pastry shops throughout the territory in variations for all tastes: inside the crispy fried wafer, which already varies considerably in size from town to town, the ricotta can be more or less refined, more or less sweet, seasoned with or without chocolate chips, with or without candied citrus peel, and the whole cannoli can be garnished with candied orange and cherry or not ... Ideally, one could go on a delicious excursion, in several stages, to compare and choose the favourite version.
Even ricotta cassatelle are present throughout the Trapani area and, even in this case, the variations on the theme are innumerable, from the mixture of the "saccottini" which have Marsala wine as an ingredient, to the aromas that season the ricotta inside them, to the very shape of the cassatella: in Custonaci, for example, they make them with a woven edge.
An unusual dish is the cassatelle eaten as a first course: especially those in fish broth typical of San Vito Lo Capo and those of the Erice area, seasoned with wild fennel and tomato sauce.
The almond pastries, widespread throughout the territory but originating in Erice deserve a special mention, as do the refined “dolci conventuali” (convent pastries) - candied citrus peel covered with light pastel-coloured icing also used for delicate and precious floral decorations - and the biscuits, always coming from the convents of the village, typical and unique such as “mustazzoli”, scented with cinnamon and honey, and “quaresimali”, with whole almonds in the dough. The “legendary” genovesi ericine, short pastry filled with delicate and simple milk cream and sprinkled with icing sugar has the same origins.
To try last but not least, is the so-called "street food", to be eaten, in fact, outside restaurants or at home. The protagonists here are the panelle, triangles of chickpea dough fried in very hot oil, crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside, to be enjoyed hot, classically in the middle of a sandwich, perhaps combined with crocchè, potato croquettes flavoured with parsley and breaded with breadcrumbs, also quickly fried.
