THE END OF SUMMER

Summer has officially ended and, whilst I am not a beachy person and rejoice in everything at last being open again, I will be sorry to see the end of the gelato season and of its companions cremolate and granite.

Left to right:  granita di mandarino; cremolata di gelsi (mulberry); granita di pesche e fichi d'India
(peaches and prickly pear, the latter being a late summer addition to the granita repertoire)

My favourite peaches,  pesche tabbacchierie, get larger and less sweet as August ends but then these delights appear:

Centre:  frutta di Martorana
Right: "cakes" of cotognata (quince paste)

Finally, I cannot let the summer end without sharing this with you:  the other day, a Sicilian friend said he had spotted a British man coming out of the B&B opposite his house. I asked how he had known the man was British.

"Because he was wearing sandals and socks", came the reply.

Embed from Getty Images

18 THINGS YOU MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT PALERMO

Palermo has been selected as Italian Capital of Culture 2018 so here, in no particular order, are 18 facts - some quirky, others not so - that you may not know about the city:

1.  Its Palazzo dei Normanni was, from 1130 , the seat of the Sicilian Parliament, one of the oldest in the world. (I've met a lot of Sicilians who claim that it is, in fact, the oldest.] It now houses the Sicilian Regional Assembly.

2.  In 2016 Palermo was declared the worst city in Italy for traffic congestion.

3.  Frutti di Martorana, the marzipan "fruits" you will see everywhere in Sicily in autumn, were, according to legend, first made in The Martorana Convent in Palermo.

4.  The city's most important Arab and Norman buildings, along with the Cathedrals of Cefalù and Monreale, were collectively named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2015.

San Giovanni degli Eremiti, Palermo

5.  Palermo street food is legendary. Eat it first, then ask what's in it!

6.  The Palermo football team's badge has been ranked (by the British Daily Mail) as among the best in the world.

7.  The city has wide boulevards reminiscent of towns in France.

8.  The word for traditional Sicilian rice balls, arancini, is used in its feminine form, arancine there.

9.  The Catacombe dei Cappuccini (Capuchin Catacombs) are a very macabre, and often upsetting, sight but must be seen. I once decided to leave them till last on a school trip but my students, having been shown the Parliament, Cathedral and other beautiful buildings, were impatiently demanding, "Can we go and see the dead people now?" by mid-morning.

Me with students in Palermo, 1995

10. The city is second only to Naples for the number of coffee manufacturers that call it home (47 in 2011).

11. During the reign of Ruggero (Roger) II, Palermo was a city in which Muslims, Christians and Jews lived side by side in harmony. This was to come to an end, however, under Frederick II, who expelled the Muslims in 1224.

12.  In 1185 Roger's daughter and Frederick's mother Costanza d'Altavilla (Constance d'Hauteville) travelled to Germany to be married with the greatest dowry the world had ever seen. She gave birth to her son in the market square in Ancona on her way back to Sicily. You can read more about this extraordinary journey in a book I reviewed here. Costanza is buried in Palermo Cathedral.

13.  Palermo has a museum of traditional puppets  (opera dei pupi) where you can also see puppet shows at certain times of the year.  You can find out more about opera dei pupi in my post here.

Some of my own Sicilian puppets

14.  Traditional Sicilian carts vary, from province to province, in their design and size. Those from Palermo were squarer and wider than many of the others and were originally used for transporting grapes. This is a link to an article on Sicilian carts that I wrote for Italy Magazine in 2010.

15. Not strictly in the City of Palermo but in Palermo Province and a short bus ride away is Monreale, whose cathedral, begun in 1174, is one of the best preserved examples of Norman architecture anywhere. It contains Byzantine mosaics throughout. There are stunning views of Palermo from Monreale.

16. In 2014 the priests of Palermo Cathedral were much criticised for displaying a prominent WC sign in a side chapel there. I don't know about you, but when being a tourist I've often desperately needed the loo by the time I got to a city's cathedral!

17.  Palermo was named Panormus ("complete port" or possibly "well-protected bay") by the Greeks, This became Balarme under Arabic rule.

18.  To end on a sombre note, Palermo Airport, formerly known as Punta Raisi, was renamed in 1995 in honour of the anti-Mafia judges Paolo Borsellino and Giovanni Falcone who were both murdered in 1992, the latter along with his wife. The airport's full name is now L''aeroporto Internazionale Falcone e Borsellino di Palermo-Punta Raisi but it is usually referred to as aeroporto Falcone e Borsellino. Italy has been remembering the two judges in this, the 25th anniversary year of the stragi (massacres) of Capaci and via D'Amelio. We must not forget that all but one of their bodyguards died with them on those terrible days.

The candidates for Italian Capital of Culture 2020 are Agrigento, Catania, Messina, Noto, Ragusa and Siracusa. Guess which two I'll be rooting for!

City of Palermo
Coat of Arms

AUTUMN - 2

Real, but not what they seem:

They are, as regular readers will know, frutti di Martorana.  They are made from pasta reale [almond paste]  Legend has it that the first ever batch of Martorana fruit was made on the orders of the mother superior of the Martorana Convent in Palermo. She had wanted to impress her bishop during his visit so the nuns obediently prepared the “fruit” and hung it from the cloister trees; so “real” did it look that the bishop declared that a miracle had happened, as all the fruits had appeared in the same season!  

On 2nd November, I Morti [the Day of the Dead] children receive Martorana fruit as presents from deceased relatives who still wish to watch over them. Some think that this tradition is morbid but it seems to help children to accept the transitory nature of this life.

Sadly, the Martorana Convent has long gone but the Church of Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio, of which it was a part, still stands and is often called the Martorana. It is part of this.

AUTUMN JEWELS

We are coming up to the Tutti i Santi holiday and, on 2nd November, I Morti, when people remember the dead and that means the pastry shops are full of frutti di Martorana like these, which children receive as gifts from relatives who are no longer with them but continue to watch over them:

I like the legend of the origin of frutta di Martorana, so I will tell it again here:

The exquisite "fruits" are made from pasta reale [almond paste] but “marzipan” is a very inadequate translation which does not do justice to the work involved in its making. Legend has it that the first ever batch of Martorana fruit was made on the orders of a certain mother superior, who wanted to impress her Bishop during his visit. So the nuns prepared the “fruit” and hung it from the cloister trees; so “real” did it look that the Bishop declared that a miracle had happened, as all the fruits had appeared in the same season!

PASCHAL LAMB

Some students brought me this traditional Easter lamb crafted from almond paste and surrounded by frutta di Martorana.

Buona Pasqua a tutti!

I CARI DEFUNTI

When houses are silent and all are fast asleep tonight, so Italian children believe, the cari defunti or beloved departed of their families will once again become their mortal selves and will come into the bedrooms of their loved ones, kiss them and see that they are tucked in cosily.  Then they will hide some gifts for the children to find tomorrow morning.  In Sicily, frutta di Martorana or mazipan fruit will be among the gifts.

Later tomorrow families will visit their local cemeteries to give thanks for the generosity of their departed relatives and there they will light red votive candles and even sit down for a picnic among the tombs, for this festival, particularly dear to Sicilians, has two purposes:  to remember the dead and to teach children that death is part of life.

AND THE ANSWER IS ...

Last night's photo is of a perfectly formed lemon frutto di Martorana made from almond paste. It was given to me in its pretty little bucket as an Easter pensiero by a friend and nothing could have delighted me more.

[I was going to put this on as an update to the previous post but then decided it would take me half the night to rejiggle the spacing if I added another photo to it!]

Thanks to all who tried to guess!

THE TRUE HERALD OF A SICILIAN AUTUMN

Who could not be cheered by the sight of these frutti di Martorana - fruits and vegetables crafted from almond paste - on sale this morning? I showed you some last year but this year there seem to be more vegetable shapes around. I think the tangerine is exquisite and deserves its own photo.