Eating Local

When we owned Alimentaire we sourced many of our ingredients from the local terroir. Doing that required a lot of effort, time, and expense, but we managed to do that pretty well.

In Sicily, one doesn’t have to travel great distances to keep one’s diet to the local fare. Recently, we spent a rainy and windy afternoon watching movies and grazing on the charcuterie boards you see pictured. Not a single item comes from outside of Sicily, not even the grains used to produce the bread. The Tarocco oranges are the same I spoke of from my first blog post. And as for the olive oil (and olives, too), we harvested the olives and use it every day. Stay tuned…in a future post, I will share our experience of harvesting olives and witnessing the production of this same olive oil. All of the featured components were gathered on foot, walking less than 5km (total) to some of the best spots to buy fresh fare and spending a lot less than what we were used to spending in our former life.

By the numbers:

1.     Mozzarella di bufala, Nicosia (EN), arrives every morning by 11am in the store.

2.     Ricotta fresca, Nicosia (EN), arrives every morning by 11am in the store.

3.     Sicilian Bread, Troina (EN), local bread shop (there are 4 in Troina)

4.     Sun dried tomatoes (Troina) (EN) and capers (coastal Sicily) (ME) preserved in olive oil (Troina) (EN)

5.     Blackberry jam (Troina) (EN), local gourmet/gift shop

6.     Fig jam (Troina) (EN), local gourmet/gift shop

7.     Anchovy dip (Coastal Sicily) (SR), prepared at home.

8.     Carrots (Troina) (EN), vegetable stand

9.     Green olives preserved in olive oil (Troina) (EN) Black olives preserved with olive oil and oranges (Troina) (EN)

10.  Blood oranges, Tarocco variety, (Catania), truck vendor

11.  Cured salamino (Troina) (EN), local butcher shop

12.  Mortadella (Randazzo) (CT), Saturday Market

13.  Prosciutto (Randazzo) (CT), Saturday Market

14.  Provola cheese (Troina) (EN), local butcher shop

15.  Pecorino in black pepper (Nicosia) (EN), local store

16.  Pecorino ‘primo sale’ (Randazzo) (CT), Saturday Market

**EN – Enna

**SR – Siracusa

**CT – Catania