The One That Didn't Get Away!

Hello Foodies,

Last week I was in Marzamemi, near Siracusa in Sicily. Paradise.

For Andrea Camilleri’s book and TV series, Inspector Montalbano, aficionados, this is one of the locations on the show.

Commissario Montalbano.

If you remember from my last post, I was with my friends, Alessandro and Vesna, the newlyweds who asked TDF to plan their honeymoon. We stayed in a couple of charming mini-apartments in the old tonnara, only 10 meters from the sea. I have never seen a more star-filled sky than the one we enjoyed here!

Getting to more serious stuff...behind our apartments were a few interesting restaurants, including the renowned Taverna la Cialoma (on left) and La Balata, but I felt I needed to offer Alessandro and Vesna something really special.

So the next morning I woke up very early and went onto our terrace to look at the sea and just waited, and waited, and waited. Finally around 9:30 am, I saw the first fishing boat returning to the harbor. Although the harbor was literally less than 50 meters from my terrace, I ran because I wanted to be the first one to get to that boat. Using my still pretty good Sicilian dialect (I am from the west side of the Island in Palermo where we speak differently from the easterners), I asked the Captain what he had caught. His first answer was depressing: “Nothing, only some pesce di brodo", or fish only good to prepare a soup, meaning any type of fish that is full of bones, or fish with not enough meat, or not tasty enough, or all of these things put together. Having had previous experience with Sicilian fishermen, I told them how we came all the way from New York just to stay here and to taste the famous fish from Marzamemi and that my friends were just married, etc., etc.!

Finally, one of the other men said to the Captain, "C’mon, give it to him…” I was already excited because I knew what that meant. Then the captain uncovered a secret section of the boat, where there were, in order: the freshest triglie (mullet) I have ever seen (and later ate) in my life; a wonderful swordfish; and 2 boxes of gamberoni (shrimp). I almost fainted. I filled up two bags and ran back to the apartment shouting! I woke up my friends who thought I had gone crazy. I explained to them that I had just gotten the “special” fish, the ones that fisherman will not usually sell to you, either because it is already sold to the best restaurants who pay a lot of money for it, or because they keep it to eat themselves.

That night, we grilled the “special” fish on a barbecue, which I prepared using wood, adding only salmoriglio (a mixture of olive oil, fresh lemon, oregano, and salt). We drank an excellent local wine called, Inzolia, chilled to perfection. We were in heaven.

This time, I have to conclude with a, "Grazie, Capitano!"

Enjoy,

Giuseppe