When vacationing in Palermo, our minds go straight to one thing: what to eat? What are the five typical dishes of Sicilian cuisine? Well, who hasn’t heard of the classic arancina or cannolo? Surely you’ve heard of them and maybe you’ve even had the chance to taste these Sicilian delicacies.
Palermo, in particular, is the true king of street food, but not only because the long gastronomic tradition of Palermo has been influenced by multiple Mediterranean cultures, giving rise to some dishes that are among the best in the world. So let’s discover what to eat in Palermo and what the five typical dishes of Sicily are.
The first place is certainly reserved for the arancina, which here in Palermo is feminine and takes on a characteristic round shape. There has always been a kind of rivalry between the arancina of Palermo and that of Catania, which instead is called arancino and assumes a pointed shape. In any case, whether masculine or feminine, it is a true Sicilian delicacy to be enjoyed in various varieties.
The most traditional arancine are those prepared with ragų and those with butter, but here in Palermo there are many different fillings, such as those “alla norma” (with eggplants), with mushrooms, with spinach, but also with swordfish or salmon, and even with chocolate: a real delight.
Let’s continue by talking about the delicious stigghiole, a Sicilian dish made from lamb, sheep, and goat intestines wrapped around stems of spring onions and parsley; these are then tied and roasted on the grill what can we say? You just have to try it to believe it.
What to eat in Palermo? Here are five Sicilian delicacies.
Have you ever tried the classic pani câ meusa (spleen sandwich)? It’s a round-shaped sandwich covered with sesame seeds (vastedda) and filled with boiled calf spleen and lung, then deep-fried. In this case, however, in addition to this version, there is another one that instead involves the addition of caciocavallo or salted ricotta.
But when it comes to Sicilian food, you can’t forget about pizza sfincione, an undisputed symbol of street food along with those mentioned above. Sfincione is nothing but a kind of pizza with a particularly soft and porous dough that can be topped with tomato sauce, caciocavallo, pecorino, along with anchovies, onion, and then finished with oil and oregano.
Last but not least, it is obligatory to mention the famous Sicilian cannolo. It consists of a crispy fried pastry shell rolled around creamy fresh ricotta. This is usually enriched with tasty chocolate chips and then finished with a candied orange peel or pistachio granules.
