On Persephone's Island by Mary Taylor Simeti

The secret to being a good cook? “Probably the most important is liking to eat and then paying attention to the quality of your ingredients,” she says.Īnd dulcis in fundo (sweetness at the end) is it difficult to make pasta di mandorle or cannoli at home? “I realize in retrospect that I had picked the perfect moment, and that a year or two later the results would have been very different.” I thought the difference in ages, which ranged from 5 to 14, would be challenging, but they were tremendously supportive of each other and amazingly cooperative,” she says. “They worked hard, liked acquiring new skills, and were very proud of the meals that we served to their parents.

Her grandsons enjoyed cooking with nonna and that surprised her. In recent years top chefs have been concentrating on reinterpreting traditional dishes with a focus on local ingredients and terroir,” she explains.

How is it evolving? “After a period in the ’80s of being bewitched by “international” cuisine, in the ’90s Sicilian restaurants rediscovered traditional cuisine. I loathed it.īack to good books - Gavin maxwell, Norman Lewis, Denis MackSmith, John julius Norwich and Norman Douglas.She describes Sicilian food as “produce rather than process - Sicilian food at its best is born of simple but top-quality ingredients combined with great sophistication.” It could have been so much more - a social history of Sicily, a history of why the Sicilian character is so complex, the melting pot of cultures - all we get is a plod through dates and events that you can get from Wikipedia, but with trite and fatuous footnotes and a poor grasp of history. Its also obvious that she was based in the west of the island, as the east of the island, rarely gets a look in - Siracusa was a notable city in Greek times we learn - and then nothing more. She rubbishes some of the respected historians academic study with no counter argument, but just some sweeping statement. She cites arguments as facts with absolutely no proofs - everything from the earliest times and 'facts' about mozia being a centre of child sacrifice, to the epicentre of the 1693 earthquake being Modica, (3 times she says this, whereas 2 minutes on the internet would prove the epicentre was Augusta), to basic translation errors and very hazy allusions to Mussolini anti mafia stance on the island. Apart from the terrible writing, purple prose and tortuous 'jokes' that Benjamin puts in this book - its just a 300 page version of a Wikipedia article.

On Persephone's Island by Mary Taylor Simeti