About Sicilian Cooking Plus

 

My wife Terry and my nephew Joseph Ciaramitaro have been encouraging me to bring about this collection of recipes.
I have asked questions, sought advice and received help from friends, relatives, my sisters Ina, Francesca and in particular from my sister Annamaria, who besides being a gourmet cook is the keeper of our family recipes.
I am thankful to my nieces Vivian and Rosie Amodio, Daniela Zenone, Rosie and my cousin Vivian Ciaramitaro for their suggestions and for testing some of the dishes. My niece Marzia Fiorilla, who lives in Sicily, has been a great help researching some of the information, recipes and narrations. Joseph also has been giving useful recommendations to the development of this site.
My dear friend, Frank Curcurato, has given encouragement and expert advice in the completion of this task. Frank has extraordinary experience in the food industry, having been in all phases of the food business, from cooking to managing, from food buying to catering, in small and large institutions. Being that his paternal ancestors are Sicilian, he has been a great help with his suggestions and researching of old recipes.
Meaningful and indispensable has been the intervention of a dear friend, Ms. Charlotte La Barca that has covered the gap of my unsatisfactory use of the English language by making worthy emendations and by suggesting important and useful recommendations.

 

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The Web Site

After I retired, friends and relatives were asking me for recipes, and when I wrote the recipes I saved them in a file in my computer. Soon I had written quite a few recipes and at that time, urged by Terry, I added a few more recipes and began to think about writing a cookbook.   After considerations and on Joseph’s suggestion I decided to publish “Sicilian Cooking Plus” on the internet.
The biggest merit to the realization and presentation of this compendium goes to my nephew Dimitrij Greco, who is our Webmaster, and who, besides the creation of this site, has been motivating me in this accomplishment. His hard work and great contribution has been and is an invaluable force in the design, logistics, organization, maintenance and operation of the web pages.

Recipes’ Sources

 

Some recipes come from my paternal and maternal families, some from relatives, and especially, my cousin Anna De Rosalia who has been a useful source of information.
Some material was offered from the many people I have interviewed in Sicily and from Sicilian–American friends whose parents were custodians of old recipes handed down from previous generations.
I have tried recipes learned from books, newspapers, magazines and from viewing TV programs and internet sites.
The suggestions that my wife Terry has given me, have been many and very constructive.
Terry, aside from being an exceptional wife and friend, is also an excellent gourmet cook with an enviable culinary background: in fact she was born in Emilia-Romagna and as a young girl lived in Rome. Her paternal grandparents were Venetians, her maternal grandparents were Tuscan-Emilians. Her experience in cooking and the various backgrounds taught her not only to cook well, but to capture and synthesize the basic quality and characteristic of all those regional cuisines. I will present some of her recipes, properly identified.

 

 

Our Cooking - “La Nostra Cucina”

I emphasize calling this selection a collection of recipes, because I firmly believe that cooking is such an expanded and ancient art that there is very little room for new recipes and that the only possibility is to modify them to coincide with our dietary requirements or to the availability of the local produce and products. Notably, our aim will be not to loose the characteristic of the original dishes, because “La Nostra Cucina”, our cooking style, is Regional Sicilian. 
Sicily, with her pleasant climate, natural beauty and strategic position in the Mediterranean Sea, has attracted many major powers and civilizations. Thousands of years of history have marked the culture, the way of life and the art of cookery. For this reason, even though Sicilian Cuisine is considered regional, its discerning culinary tradition has selected the best aspect of all who have touched her shores. The skill of adapting to the many influences has given us the variety and blend of gastronomic combinations that make “La Nostra Cucina” what is today- a melting pot for international food lovers.
A major consideration for the realization of this collection, as Joseph pointed out, that the traditional cuisine, our Sicilian way of cooking, our Palermitani dishes cannot be forgotten. Therefore, they must be recorded and handed down to future generations. My contribution will be very modest; all the material in these notes was accumulated through the years, researching in Palermo and all over Sicily. We are posting this collection on the internet to make it available to everyone.
The recipes are adapted to the availability of our local produce and products. Working in the kitchen for over forty years, gave me the luxury to test most recipes.
In this collection of recipes we have made a selection to appeal to the seasoned cook and to the beginner, by using plain language and by simplifying the recipes as much as possible.

 

 

Vincent and  La Focacceria Palermitana

My name is Vincent Ciaramitaro and I was born in Palermo, Sicily.
I came to the United States in my late teens and have lived in Brooklyn since then excluding for the two years, I was in the Army.
My relationship with cooking, in particular Sicilian-Palermitano cooking, started when I went to work in my father’s business, La Focacceria Palermitana, Joe’s of Avenue U, in Brooklyn.
The business was a family affair and all family members participated in the growth of it, according to his/her capacities. When I returned from military service in the United States Army, I was young and ambitious and after a short apprenticeship in the bakery business, I went back to work at the Focacceria.

 

Changing into a Modern Eatery

My father and I worked and managed the Focacceria with great care and love. When my brother Paul, who joined us, we expanded the eatery and started to update the kitchen equipment, air condition and ventilation.
My father was proud to see the way we implemented new ideas, new menus and most of all, we put all of our efforts in preparing wholesome food, using fresh ingredients and cooking the Sicilian way.
The next step was to modify the existing aspect of the store, our first objective was to create open spaces, to make people welcome and to have an eye-catching display of the food we prepared. To accomplish this, we installed a twenty four foot showcase that we kept full of fresh, attractive and delicious food.
We made the display of food in the showcase so that the visual aspect of the food matched the delicious taste of it. Everyone was trained in all the details to exhibit and decorate the trays of food on display and to be prepared to answer any questions regarding the ingredients or from where the recipe had originated. Most of the food preparation was done in front of the customers and our kitchen was open to the public for inspection.

 

 

Quality and Cleanness

We painted some of the walls in bright colors and covered some of them with sparkling tiles to create an eye-catching, fresh and clean environment. The Focacceria was kept spotless at all times.
Our premises comprised of a take-out area and a large seating area, with a quick and polite table service. The taste was genuine, the food hearty and fresh, better still, very fresh!  My father used to say:  “When you cook, if you use first quality fresh food and you do not manipulate it a great deal, the end product will be excellent”.
At the “Avenue U Focacceria “we served mostly Sicilian style food, fish prepared in tasty, yet simple sauces; fine vegetables rarely found in restaurants, lightly dressed salad, out of the ordinary  delicacies and special seasonal dishes.
Our Focacceria was and is renowned, not only for the quality of foods, but because we succeeded  in creating an institution where people came not only to eat, but to smell the air of Sicily they had left behind, to taste the food like their grandma made and to link the taste of a specialty to a distant past.
We managed la Focacceria with love and with high standards; we were proud of our work and were greatly rewarded by the loyalty of our large clientele.