Flavors of Sicily

FROM THE PUBLISHER

In The Heart of Sicily, Anna Tasca Lanza recounted with loving detail the story of her family home, Regaleali. There, the famous Tasca monzu, or chef, Mario Lo Menzo created glorious dishes served with wines from the internationally renowned Regaleali winery. Now, in The Flavors of Sicily, Anna has widened her scope beyond the borders of her home to become our wise guide to a Sicily known only to insiders. Join her as she travels from region to region in order to best describe in pictures and words the delights of Sicilian summer cooking. In lyrical prose she writes of holidays and celebrations and the dishes associated with them: for the feast day of San Giuseppe there is Sfince di San Giuseppe (Fried Cream Puffs); for Easter, Pani di Cena (Sweet Rolls); and for the joyous six-day festival honoring Santa Rosalia, Babaluci del Festino in Bianco (Snails with Garlic and Parsley). And though such celebrations abound in Sicily, Anna has also discovered those culinary treasures that are enjoyed every day of the summer in her native land. She travels to Pantelleria, where Sicily's most extraordinary capers are grown; to Stromboli, for urchins plucked fresh from the sea; and to small villages where she learns to make local specialties like a Pantescan pasticcio with layers of sauteed potatoes, zucchini, eggplant, and bell peppers topped with a tomato sauce into which eggs have been scrambled. Rice is tossed with sauteed eggplant, capers, and lots of mint, or formed in a mold and filled with tomato salad. These are the simple yet delicious flavors of summer in Sicily offered in more than 120 recipes for warm-weather food that can be prepared ahead and served at room temperature.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

This small gem of a book occasionally covers some of the same ground as Lanza's The Heart of Sicily, but it doesn't suffer for it. The chapters are organized by month, from March through September, and each month begins with a description of several holidays, traditions and foods associated with it. Some of these associations are expected (e.g., Holy Week in April), but most are delightfully personal (e.g., Lanza visits the island of Pantelleria each year in June, so this month is dedicated to the famed capers, pastries and other foods of this small, rocky island). The recipes reflect Sicily's bounty of fresh vegetables and fish: Poached Sea Bass; Frittata with Bitter Greens; Rice Salad with Tomatoes, Tuna and Capers. There are also plenty of rich pastries, and these tend to be more labor-intensive. Pastry Peaches, for instance, are made by shaping the dough around walnut shell halves, then detaching them after baking and affixing two halves to each other with whipped cream to create each "peach." The recipes are fine, but the charm is in the background material. Readers will envy the pleasure Lanza and family enjoy when opening and drinking the wine her husband's grandfather started collecting in 1880, just before Europe's vineyards were ravaged by blight. Photos not seen by PW. (Apr.)

Library Journal

Lanza (The Heart of Sicily, Crown, 1993) runs a cooking school in Sicily, where she and her family also have a vineyard. In this charming "warm-weather" cookbook, she writes about the festivals, foods, and holidays of the late spring and summer months. She starts with the Feast of St. Joseph on March 19, describing the elaborate bread altars and the special dishes associated with this feast day, and ends with the grape harvest in early September and another religious holiday later in the month, discussing as well the wealth of end-of-summer produce-tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini, and more. A delightfully personal book, written with style and grace and filled with delicious recipes and insights into all sorts of culinary matters, this is highly recommended.

BookList - Barbara Jacobs