What's Asher Eating? Part One

Barbecued Artichoke

In the morning before I left for Agrigento, near Sicily’s south western coast, I did a quick loop through Catania’s fish market. Though small, the market was alive with activity and seafood. Vendors fought for attention in the outdoor marketplace, displaying and announcing their freshest fish to a small crowd. Murky, fish-guts infused water lay beneath our feet as we trudged over the cobblestone floor. However just outside the market and underneath the elevated train line a plume of smoke was building. The train line didn’t seem to be on fire, so curious and with caution, I approached.

In amongst the smoke was a man wrinkled like a prune, tending to a large barbecue. His hands and face were blackened by charcoal. Covering the barbecue were rows of artichokes which had been grilled on the barbecue and steamed under cardboard. After standing at his table for a minute or two he begrudgingly came over to find out what I wanted. He appeared annoyed that someone was buying an artichoke and that this would take him away from cooking them.

I asked for one. He grabbed a recently cooked specimen, wrapped it in some aluminium foil and handed it to me with some napkins, I would be needing them. I wanted to ask if there was a sauce or something to have rather than just a plain grilled artichoke but he didn’t appear to be the chatty type. So I head to the park nearby to have a taste.

Now it’s worth noting that, in my opinion, some foods are really just vessels for other foods. That is, sometimes the main ingredient in a food is really just a way to consume a large amount of another. Eating butter and hundreds-and-thousands on their own wouldn’t be socially acceptable, so Australians created fairy bread, where bread works as a vessel to consume the other ingredients. In hummus chickpeas feature most prominently but really, in my opinion, they are just a vessel for consuming copious amounts of tahini - the world’s best condiment. Similarly, I learned with my artichoke from Catania that the artichoke was really just a vessel for consuming garlic. Lots of garlic.

What I had thought was a plain grilled artichoke had been filled in the centre with garlic, parsley and olive oil. Avoiding the blackened outer leaves and going straight to the sweet, soft ones in the centre I grabbed as much parsley-garlic mix as I could and slid the leaf into my mouth. I dragged it over my teeth, taking a bit of artichoke with it. So I had some of the artichoke But really this merely was a sophisticated way of eating garlic. I slowly made my way around the vegetable and ensured ever edible part was eaten. I avoided exhaling directly in someone’s face on the bus to Agrigento.

Cialdoni

I realised that I had been in Sicily for three days and had not a cannolo (‘cannolo’ is the singular of the plural ‘cannoli,’ please learn your Italian before correcting me). In Agrigento there was a pasticceria on the main street. I’d passed it a couple times on the day after I arrived. Each time the sweet aroma of pistachio and almond wafted into the street and wafted passersby back into the shop like an invisible, olfactory boomerang.

But I had resisted the temptation. I was on a budget. And when you are on a budget you never buy food on the main street, that’s rule number three, (Rule one - stick to the budget, rule two - never go to restaurants that have English written on the menu first). But I had had a long day. I woke up tired. Not a good start. I’d walked down to the beach at San Leone because I was too tired to ask anyone how to get to the bus. Another bad decision (don’t expect highways to have footpaths). But I had arrived back in Agrigento and I wanted a cannolo.

I went straight to the pasticceria after getting back into town. If I thought the smell for the outside was good, that unisensory experience was about to become multisensory. A long bar lined the cramped shop from end-to-end taking up about two thirds of the width of the room. At one end was a cash register and at the other was a table with steel buckets filled with granita. Patrons could just shuffle pass to make their selection from the glass display cases in between. Inside was an array of about twenty or thirty different types of green, beige and brown biscuits. There were so many types of biscuits and yet they were all probably composed of almost the same ingredients.

On top of the bar there was a basket filled with unfilled cannoli shells. Next to them were some other cylindrical, biscuit-type things as well. A card in front of them informed me that these were ‘cialdoni’ and that they were a specialty of the area. It’s worth noting that I’m a sucker for anything that claims to be a local specialty. If you tell me something’s typical of the area, I’ll have it. So when I saw the cialdoni next to the cannoli I was conflicted. I couldn’t get both, I was already in violation of budget rules and so I didn’t want to double-violate. Sure, I came in wanting cannoli but who was I to know what I wanted?

I ordered a cialdono. That was a good decision. Like a cannolo, it was long and cylindrical and had a tubular hole in the middle which was filled fresh with sweetened ricotta. However, unlike a cannolo, the confection was baked instead of fried and was more like a soft biscuit covered in pistachios and almonds. It was quite nice. I would have one or two or ten again.