What's Asher Eating? Part Two
Virgin’s Breast
The monastery of Santa Caterina charges an entry fee of three euros. Inside, I was told, I could see a nice, old church and the monastery. I could ascend a staircase to the top of the main tower where there were excellent panoramas over Palermo, I was told. But thousands of panoramic pictures of Palermo had already been taken. I didn’t need to take one as well. I knew I could spend my three euros a lot more effectively. So after entering the monastery rather than turning left towards the ticket booth I headed to the right and to the monastery’s dolceria - its bakery and sweet shop.
The monastery had been making different sweets for centuries. They were most well known for the decorative almost-real looking marzipan fruit that they created. Walking inside the dolceria there were a couple of counters of biscuits filled with things like ricotta, almonds, lemon and pumpkin. I asked the woman serving, in mutilated Italian, what was the most typical or popular thing I should get. We eventually settled on Minne di Vergine, which I only later discovered the English translation of, featured in this section’s subheading.
The cake was a small half-dome about the size of half a small orange. It was covered in a thick layer of hard white icing and finished with a maraschino cherry in the centre. At the time I thought that if two cakes were placed side-by-side it could have been a great centrepiece for a pastry-focused buck’s party. But I was in a monastery so I kept that thought to myself. Only after doing some research later I realised that this was the intended effect. It is still unclear to me why the cakes are meant to look like breasts, but it seems like it is something to do with honouring Saint Agatha. I feel like there are other ways she could have been honoured. Nevertheless, after paying at the register I headed to the monastery’s internal courtyard for a taste.
The cake was very sweet. It had lots of sugar, even for someone who enjoyed sugar, like me. Inside a soft biscuit shell, slathered in the aforementioned icing, the cake was filled with ricotta, marzipan and some citrus fruit peel.
Spleen Sandwich
The first time I walked past Nni Franco U Vastiddaru in Palermo’s Vucciria market there was a large crowd gathered outside, waiting for their turn to order. It was the lunchtime rush on a Sunday at a sandwich shop in the heart of Palermo so it made sense that it was quite busy. I was intrigued as to why this shop was getting so much more attention than others. But not intrigued enough to wait in line so I grabbed some other food and instead explored the Sunday markets of antiques and other bits-and-bobs that surrounded the nearby park.
Later in the afternoon I passed by the same shop and noticed there was little to no queue so I approached the bar and looked over the menu. There were an assortment of sandwiches and fried goods listed. Sandwiches with potato croquettes, ‘panelle’ (fried slices of chickpea dough), eggplant, mozzarella, salami and bresaola where only a few of the options available. But first on the list was “panino con la milza” or spleen sandwich. Unlike most people, I do not regularly eat spleen so I thought this was an excellent opportunity.
I looked at the man behind the counter, who seemed to be in charge. He, along with the other three family members in the kitchen, looked miserable. Though clearly in the sandwich-industry for a while, they seemed uninterested by the endless bounds of bread, fillings and sauces. Eventually one approached me and I ordered a sandwich. Considering the ingredients were sitting in front of him and it was their number one sandwich consisting of only three main ingredients, it took a long time to make. It seemed that the long line I saw earlier in the day was not because of the venue’s popularity but because of the lack of efficiency in their business practice.
The sandwich itself is composed of bread, spleen, seasoning and either lemon or cheese. A small roll has some of its superfluous interior removed and is then filled with slices of stewed veal spleen. These days the spleen is supplemented by some lung, the poor man’s spleen (there’s only so much spleen to go around). The bread is then drained of any excess liquid, some seasoning is added and then you get your choice - lemon or cheese. ‘Schettu’ or single is with lemon whereas adding cheese brings together the marriage, or ‘maritatu,’ of meat and dairy. Having tried both I think that the best way would be lemon and cheese but I felt scared to ask for that. The spleen itself was quite nice, subtler in taste than kidneys but not as soft.
