Today it
does so much "cool" to go around for the world to try the street
food, natural father of the most modern fast-food. Needless to say you that in
Sicily, where we are ahead always, we have been serving it for centuries: we
have invented fast-food, practically. I know, you will be thinking that I am a
flag-waving terrona[1], an extremist of the terrone’s thought.
Well, a fund of truth there is perhaps, the certainty however it is in the fact
that I madly love my earth and above all my city Palermo, an old stretched out
lady between a mountain (Monte Pellegrino[2]) and the sea, noble, indolent,
magnificent despite the marked signs of the time, that it still emanates a
strong aura, memory of her shines of Liberty époque and of all of her ancient
history.
But before
I attach a melancholy essay of endless pages on the beauty of Palermo, we
return to the street food. Useless to ask you who has left it in inheritance
because the answer is almost rhetorical: the Arabs. Just in the recipe of the
panelle, however the influence of French is also recognized, it seems in fact
has been the Angevin to introduce the palermitan[3] to the frying. The panelle together
with the "cazzilli[4]" constitute one of the
binomial ones more succeeded in the history of the traditional Sicilian gastronomy.
"Manciarisi 'u bellu pani chi
panielli e i cazzilli[5]" it is for the palermitan a
true satisfaction, together with so many other delicacies of the kind street
food: pani ca' meusa, stigghiole,
frittola, sfincionello, arancine[6] with the whole succession of its
family, the "rosticceria[7]."
The
characteristics of the palermitan street food are essentially two: the first
one is that "if you don't grease
your hands at least " you are squareing off badly the battle; the
second, it must be "abbannìato[8]". The syncopated scream of the
palermitan seller is a delight for the ears of the pedestrian, attracted by him
as Ulisse was from the sirens. As to say, in short, that is not only the taste
of the food to give the intense flavor to these culinary delicacies.
No more
chatting! Here is the recipe of these fanciful chickpea flour fritters.
Ingredients:
500 gr. of
chickpea flour; 1,5 l. of water; 2 full coffee teaspoons of salt; pepper q.b.;
parsley; finocchiu 'ngranatu (seeds of wild fennel); oilseed.
Procedure:
Sift the
chickpea flour in a large pot and, pouring the cold water to thread, to melten it.
Beat the mixture with a whip (or to beat it some second with the hand blender)
eliminating all the possible lumps, add the salt and the pepper. Put the pot on
the heat and leave to cook to middle flame, continually mixing, until the
mixture is stiff and starts to stick at the base of the pan. Keep on cooking
for other five minutes around, adding the minced parsley (and "u finocchiu 'ngranatu", if you appreciated
it). Keep out from heat and, helping yourself with the spoon, pour quickly the
mixture in a great container wet previously to the inside with some water or
greasy with oilseed (before the advent of the plastics, for this purpose, were
used the barrel of the oilseed). Leave to cool completely, turn out the
chickpea “bread” and cut it so that to get some slices of around 2-3
millimeters thickness: you must be realized some rectangles of such a dimension
by to be able to comfortably have put inside the sandwiches. Fry the panelle in
warm deep-oil for few minutes, watching out to make them gild from both sides.
To extract them with the perforated spoon and put in a small baking-pan with
some sheets of rolling paper. Salt again, just a little bit, and shake to
eliminate the oiled in excess and to make to diwy up well the salt.
It does not
stay whether to take them and to bring to her mouth, natùre or with some drops
of lemon juice, inside the bread or alone: "e viri chi manci[9]”.
[2] W. Goethe defined Monte Pellegrino “the most beautiful promontory of the world”.
[3] Native of Palermo.
[4] Croquettes of potatoes from
the unmistakable form of little penis from which they take the name
[5] “To eat a good sandwich with panelle and cazzilli” in Sicilian
language.
[6] All typical street food from
Palermo.
[7] Food typology.
[8] “Shouted”
[9] Literally: “and you see what you eat”.
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