Any real Sicilian places around

Does anyone know if there is a truly authentic Sicilian restaurant/Bakery/Grocery in the area? I am new to the area. Both my parents are Sicilian and I grew up with this food. It's different that Italian food, trust me.

There is Sicilia Bakery at Lawrence and Austin. It is a deli, and they have excellent what I assume would be sicilian pizza, too.

Sicilia Bakery
5937 W. Lawrence Ave.
Chicago, IL
773-545-4464

Terrasini wrote:Does anyone know if there is a truly authentic Sicilian restaurant/Bakery/Grocery in the area? I am new to the area. Both my parents are Sicilian and I grew up with this food. It's different that Italian food, trust me.

Not to quibble but a distinction between Sicilian food on the one hand and 'Italian' on the other makes no sense to me. One can speak of 'Italian' food in a broad sense, understanding that that covers all of the regional cuisines as well as the 'national' cuisine, insofar as it exists (and nowadays I'd say it does), but Sicilian cuisine is a regional cuisine of Italy, as is Neapolitan and Barese and Abruzzese and Genovese and Sardinian etc., etc. Making such a distinction is tantamount to making a distinction between Italian and Neapolitan food. Sicilian cuisine is quite distinct, but it fits into a continuum and has innumerable ties that bind it to the boot.

Be that as it may, it is something of an odd lack in Chicago that there is no place (at least as far as I know) that really specialises in Sicilian cuisine. Sicilia bakery is a good place that you should check out (I haven't been there but I have had their pizza and my paisano/landsmann Hungryrabbi thinks highly of it).

Graziano's grocery store on Randolph Street is run by a Sicilian family and they carry a number of specialties from the big island. Graziano's (link) is one of my favourite stores in the city and I've written about it at length in the linked post.

I believe Little Joe's on Taylor Street has some manner of connexion to Sicily -- in any event, I got that impression for some reason once when I was looking at their menu posted in the window -- but all I have sampled of Little Joe's is their housemade sausage, sold on occasion at Masi's Italian Superior Bakery (which is Neapolitan).

Given the substantial number of immigrants from Sicily who settled in Chicago, it's odd there isn't more of a Sicilian presence, but the complete obliteration of the most concentrated Sicilian neighbourhood ('Little Hell') may account for this situation. Perhaps in the western suburbs there are some places that haven't come to my attention yet. As always, I keep looking.

Welcome to LTH.

Antonius

Thanks Antonius. You're right about "Italian" vs. Sicilian. What I meant to say was, for me, Sicilian food is the best. Of course, each region has something that I like but if I had to choose, I would choose Sicilian.

Thanks for the heads up on Graziano's. I think I'll stop by this weekend.


Sal


"Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you what you are." -- Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Terrasini wrote:Sicilian food is the best.

Uh oh, them's fightin' words...

My peeps are from Lazio and Campania and so, knowing the cuisine of that neck of the woods well, I can say with confidence that our's is the best...

Sicilian cuisine is wonderful, without doubt. And being a big island, there is quite a bit of variation within Sicily.

Thanks for the heads up on Graziano's. I think I'll stop by this weekend.

I'm overdue for a visit myself this Saturday, so maybe I'll see you there.

Ciao,
Antonius

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree Antonius. What about Arab/Middle Eastern Markets? What info can you give me there? I am looking for lamb intestines and I think the best place to find them is in Arab/Middle Eastern markets. There were plenty of them in Michigan.

Sal

Your best bet is probably City Noor in the Albany Park neighborhood.

City Noor Meat
(773) 267-9166
4718 N Kedzie Ave
Chicago, IL 60625

Terrasini wrote:I guess we'll have to agree to disagree Antonius. What about Arab/Middle Eastern Markets? What info can you give me there? I am looking for lamb intestines and I think the best place to find them is in Arab/Middle Eastern markets. There were plenty of them in Michigan.

Sal

Well, it probably deserves a separate thread but the short answer is that you should go to the area around the intersection of Lawrence (El Aurans) and Kedzie. There are several Arab butcher shops along Kedzie, just north and south of Lawrence. I've long been a customer of City Noor Meats (search on that name for posts on butcher shop and more recently opened restaurant). But the last couple times I've been there, the selection was quite limited -- the restaurant seems to be taking precedence these days.

Al Khayam, just north of City Noor (and just south of Lawrence) on the westside of Kedzie also has a butcher shop and is one of the best bakeries for Middle Eastern bread in the city. Further south on Kedzie there are a couple more Arab groceries/butcher shops. And to the north is Sahar Meat Market, on which I've been intending to post for some time now -- maybe later today.

Andy's is a great grocery store, more or less across the street from Al Khayam. They also have a fine meat section and some interesting packaged goods and funky wines.

Antonius

Ok, somebody clue me in on the italian/sicilian thing. What ARE the differences and why is one better than the other?

The difference as I see it, from growing up in a Sicilian family and travelling to Italy and Sicily, is Sicilians don't use very much butter, if any in cooking. The exception is when making a bechemel sauce. Sicilian food, in my opinion, is much simpler and lighter. That's not to say that we don't fry things. Panelle and arancini are Sicilian.

Sicilian food is Italian food. It just seems to be different from all other regional food. If you ever travel to Italy and Sicily, you will notice that Sicily is a world apart from "mainland" Italy. It may as well be another country. Sicily has been conquered so many times by so many different ethnic groups that there is an influence from all of them. You would be amazed at the couscous you can get in San Vito in Sicily.

In general as you move from the north of Italy to the south of Italy and Sicily, you see less use of: beef, butter, fresh pastas, and cream. You see a corresponding uptick in use olive oil, tomatoes, fish, etc.

These are gross generalizations and I'm sure Antonius will upbraid me for them, but it should be a good guide.

I think you hit it Ed.

Chicago had a specifically Sicilian place in Bucktown/Wicker Park several years back. Luna Blue, I think it was called. That was during a period when the restaurant business here tended toward a few non-"Tuscan" non-"Southern" regional Italians such as the missed-by-me Trattoria Parma where one could get a proper bollito misto.

The Sicilian place wasn't very good, as I remember it. But it did have particulalry Sicilian dishes, such as pastas with sardines and dried fruit. That sort of stuff.

Many factors distinguish Sicily. Obvious, perhaps, but impossible to overestimate are the cumulative effects of it being an island set two miles from the Italian mainland and less than 100 miles from Africa, continuously occupied and repeatedly conquered for over 20,000 years. In historic times, Sicans, Sicels, Elymians, Phoenicians, Greeks, Rome, Carthage, Vandals, Jews, Saracens, Normans, Byzantium, and Spain have all left their marks on the people and cuisine. The Sicilian dialect draws many words from Greek and Arabic and is not intelligible for native Italian speakers.

Today the island has distinct cuisines on the eastern (Magna Graecia) and western (Moorish) sides. While the coast features seafood in abundance, the preparations are different from side to side. In the West, fish mixed with sultanas, mountain fennel, pine nuts, sweet onions are common (the great U Perciatu' cu li sarde), as are panelle, chickpea fritters, and Maccu', a soup made of chick peas. You'll find anchovies, mint, citrus, saffron, chocolate, almonds, hot peppers, indigenous greens, all used in novel combinations that evoke the food of the middle east, but with a clearly Sicilian signature. The sweets of Palermo are simply outstanding: cannoli, cassata, frutta di Martorana (elaborately scupted fruit made of marzipan), and gelati unlike anything found on the mainland. And the produce is like nowhere else: figs, nespole, fichi d'india.

On the east side, the Greek influence is more prominent. A fennel salad with bottarga and blood oranges and swordfish with salmoriglio (olive oil, lemon, herbs, salt) would be a typical meal. One simply cannot over praise the capers from Pantelleria.

You can get decent panelle at il Cortile (8445 W. Lawrence), but I have yet to find a satisfactory pasta cu li sarde anywhere in town. Bridgeport used to have many Sicilian families, but I am not much in touch with the neighborhood today. My favorite pastries are from Palermo Bakery (3317 N. Harlem), but Sicilian Bakery at 4632 N Cumberland (next door to il Cortile) is good, too.

I am a devoted son of Naples and so maintain obeisance to the Partenopean Siren, but my second love in Italian food will always be Sicilian. Ma, chi sacciu.

Choey, thanks for the history. You know your stuff.

Choey wrote:
Today the island has distinct cuisines on the eastern (Magna Graecia) and western (Moorish) sides. While the coast features seafood in abundance, the preparations are different from side to side. In the West, fish mixed with sultanas, mountain fennel, pine nuts, sweet onions are common (the great U Perciatu' cu li sarde), as are panelle, chickpea fritters, and Maccu', a soup made of chick peas. You'll find anchovies, mint, citrus, saffron, chocolate, almonds, hot peppers, indigenous greens, all used in novel combinations that evoke the food of the middle east, but with a clearly Sicilian signature. The sweets of Palermo are simply outstanding: cannoli, cassata, frutta di Martorana (elaborately scupted fruit made of marzipan), and gelati unlike anything found on the mainland. And the produce is like nowhere else: figs, nespole, fichi d'india.

On the east side, the Greek influence is more prominent. A fennel salad with bottarga and blood oranges and swordfish with salmoriglio (olive oil, lemon, herbs, salt) would be a typical meal. One simply cannot over praise the capers from Pantelleria.

You know someday when (not if!) I finally travel to Italy (or pretty much any other foreign country) it's posts like these that I will cull from this forum to create my own travel guide. The vast majority of commercial guides can't hold a candle to such well written and insightful info. Plus - if there's ever a question I can always PM/email the OP for clarification!

K, when you decide to put on the gloves and do the heavy culinary lifting that Italy deserves, it would be my pleasure to help with your itinerary and restaurant plan. I stand ready to serve (Sono sempre a disposizione). And, should you require a full service, intrepid guide with trencherman credentials, well, you saw my business card, right? It reads "Will guide for food."

KatyK wrote:There is Sicilia Bakery at Lawrence and Austin. It is a deli, and they have excellent what I assume would be sicilian pizza, too.

Sicilia Bakery
5937 W. Lawrence Ave.
Chicago, IL
773-545-4464

While I am a devotee of Sicilia Bakery (as my homeslice Antonius rightly affirms), there is nothing, really, to make it stand out as distinctly Sicilian. The quality on offer, though, is quite good across the board: breads, sheet pizza, pastries, cookies, deli items, and such. They do, howver, offer a small selection of canned goods, including "condimento per pasta con sarde", which is a more Sicilian-based sauce/dressing, containing fennel, sardines, and raisins. I believe this is also available at many finer Italian shops in Chicago like Bari or Riviera, for example. Sicilia's homemade sausage and their selection of olives are especially good.

Reb

Choey has given a very nice and rich overview of regional dishes and things historical above but I can't resist adding a few comments, since these are historical topics in an area that I work on.

• The north / south split as characterised by Gleam is in general terms true but a more accurate distinction is, to my mind, Mediterranean vs. Continental. Liguria is definitely in northern Italy but with regard to cuisine, it -- along with much of Southern France -- is squarely in the Mediterranean camp. (The situation is similar to a degree in (parts of) the Veneto.) The cuisine of Liguria is much more like that of Southern Italy in all general respects than it is like that of the nearer Emilia or Lombardy for the obvious reasons of 'terroir' (though other, more human factors are also involved).

• Regarding Sicily I hesitate to say too much here and now, since I wish to make public my (somewhat heretical) views on Sicilian cuisine in extenso in another venue. For the moment, I'll just make the following points briefly:

- The Greek element in Sicily by no means distinguishes the island from the mainland; rather, the Greek element is one of the important shared elements of Southern (mainland) Italy and Sicily. Indeed, there remain to this day Greek speaking villages in both Apulia and Calabria and the core of Campania, including Naples itself, was not just colonised by the Greeks in remote antiquity but remained strongly Greek into Roman imperial times. There was also subsequent regional reinforcement of the Greek element through Byzantine influences in the early Middle Ages.

- A noteworthy Arab element in Sicily (and especially the west) cannot be denied. BUT there is a strong tendency these days to overvalue the Arab influence and attribute all sorts of things to the Arabs which either clearly have origins elsewhere or which are part of a far more complex and older level of cultural exchange in the Mediterranean.

- Sicilian dialects are indeed unintelligible to the average speaker of Standard Italian but so too many (most) other non-Central Italian dialects. While it is true that Sicilian dialects contain a fair number of Greek and Arabic loanwords, the Greek element is not especially distinctive vis-à-vis the Southern Italian dialects (see above). The Arabic element is limited to secondary vocabulary and doesn't touch the core of the language.

What I find most striking about Sicilian is its relatively rather limited participation in the lexical innovations of the period of Habsburg hegemony which bound continental Southern Italian dialects (Neapolitan, etc.) and Spain's main languages (both Castilian and Catalan) together. At a deeper level, also noteworthy is the striking structural similarity of the dialects of areas where Greek survived longest in continental Italy (Southern Calabria, Southern Puglia) and Sicily.

As I said above -- and in this I concur with my fellow Napolitano, Choey -- Sicilian cuisine is interesting and delicious. Unfortunately, it seems to be poorly represented around here, though that is, alas, the case with all the regional cuisines of Italy.

Of course, for all Italians, 'best' is pretty much always the regional cuisine they know from their own family.

Antonius

Choey wrote:My favorite pastries are from Palermo Bakery (3317 N. Harlem),

from the chorus: cookies, and in March, the St. Joseph's cakes. Also, the wedding cakes seem to be a Palermo mainstay--they look (can't comment on the taste) spectacular..hint to those with marriageble daughters living nearby.

It was a Palermo Bakery counter person who first directed us to Johnny's.

Antonius, admitting my limited ability to tell the difference, I'd have guessed that Sicilian had plenty of Spanish and Catalan words, but reflecting on history (once again, it seems, "history is to blame") your point makes sense. The seventeenth century was a dreadful time in Sicily, with no royal presence, but plenty of taxes to support Spanish administrations, plus a few outbreaks of plague, a major earthquake, and a stupendous eruption of Mt. Etna to add to the general misery. Upon the death of Charles II ("Chuck Do", if he'd been a rapper) in 1700, and with the connivance of the Brits, Habsburg rule passed like a kidney stone. Sicily was remanded to the custody of Savoy-Piedmont and the anticlimactic and insufficiently dramatic (to the Sicilians, anyway) Victor Amadeus. Do you know if the dialect adopted much from these characters from Turin?

Regarding other linguistic invention, I wonder if the grinding poverty of centuries of feudalism (at the hands of the latifondisti, especially in the SE) left many footprints in the language.

BTW, I'm told that in the southern Calabrian dialect, to fear or to cause fright is spagnare. No doubt it comes from the Spanish espantar, but I rather like the poetic justice of "nun mi spagna'", "Don't Spain me."

Sicilian does have its fair and healthy share of Hispanisms, to be sure, and the island of Sicily was under the boot of Aragonese-Catalan power for a longer period of time than was the other 'Sicily' (i.e., the Kingdom of Naples, in goofy Spanish parlance), but there are some morpholexical features that Sicilian lacks but Castilian and Catalan and Southern Italian (Neapolitan plus) all share (e.g., tenere supplanting avere as 'to have' but retaining avere as an auxiliary). Some of the issues involved get complex from an historical point and can be attributed to much earlier waves of innovation but I think that these shared features are at the very least instances of selection of existing variants in the context of close cultural interaction, especially in certain centres, most notably Naples. And Sicily was relatively or to some degree peripheral to the intense axis of exchange between Spain and Naples, from the last period of the independent Aragonese state on into the first period of a (sort of) united Spanish crown.

In the case of Calabrian spagnà(re), the sound shape of the form doesn't point to Castilian espantar but rather to Catalan espanyar; the semantic match is better with Castilian but the Catalan verb as a reflexive can mean 'annoy' or 'agitate' and the path from there to 'fear' is pretty direct. That's more or less off the top of my head but I'll look into it further when I get a chance.

Antonius

Antonius wrote:In the case of Calabrian spagnà(re), the sound shape of the form doesn't point to Castilian espantar but rather to Catalan espanyar; the semantic match is better with Castilian but the Catalan verb as a reflexive can mean 'annoy' or 'agitate' and the path from there to 'fear' is pretty direct.

Once again, poetic justice loses out to linguistic fact. Darn.

That's more or less off the top of my head...

What's the Castilian word for "undisguised reverence," because I've got tons of that right now.

Choey wrote:

Antonius wrote:In the case of Calabrian spagnà(re), the sound shape of the form doesn't point to Castilian espantar but rather to Catalan espanyar; the semantic match is better with Castilian but the Catalan verb as a reflexive can mean 'annoy' or 'agitate' and the path from there to 'fear' is pretty direct.

Once again, poetic justice loses out to linguistic fact. Darn.

Well, I think the poetic, ironic element remains, though Castilians of the Golden Age regarded the Catalans with contempt, in part for not being properly militaristic and cruel... Makes you wonder about what was going on in Calabria... And actually, perhaps that poetic element was present in the minds of the Calabrians when they borrowed this word... A sort of joke, perhaps, for, after all, it's not as if there was some compelling linguistic need to borrow a new word for 'to be afraid' or 'to fear'. I think you've pointed up something pretty neat!

That's more or less off the top of my head...

What's the Castilian word for "undisguised reverence," because I've got tons of that right now.

But I must confess that I studied this general field and over the past several months, moreover, the top of my head has been filled with Catalan and Castilian and Southern Italian dialect material in connexion with the study of the mysteries of ciambotta and xamfaina etc....

Going back to something I was reminded of in your preceding post, there are were a number of 'Gallo-Italic' colonies in Sicily (also some in Southern Italy), that is to say, villages settled by immigrants from Northern Italy or neighbouring parts of Southern France. These villages formed little linguistic islands for a long time, perhaps with that being still the case to some degree, though I think the absorption must be pretty far advanced by now.

Don Antonio de la Plancha

Peor será esto que los molinos de viento...
Cervantes, Don Quixote, I.viii

It's refreshing to find people who love food and understand food. It's easy to order something off a menu and either love it or hate it. It's another thing to understand where this food came from, what significance it has to the culture and what influences went into it.

I spent so much time in Sicily and was able to go to local businesses and watch cheese being made, watch fisherman make a living, been in front of the ovens in bakeries and ate things I have never heard of. It adds to your enjoyment of the food.

You're right on Antonius, some Sicilian dialects are unintelligible from classic Italian. When in a company of friends, some Sicilian and some continental Italian, the Italians don't know what we Sicilians are saying. It's truly a foreign language to them. I am fluent in Sicilian (from Cinisi) but my "Italian" is horrible. We do have a Spanish influence in our dialect. Some of our words are no where near Italian words, rather more Spanish.

I think Choey, Antonius and I should take a culinary tour of Sicily. It will blow you away.

Great thread guys, although I'm still pondering that period when the Jews conquered Sicily Must explain the affinity for corned beef amonst the many Sicilians I know.

Palermo can be very good when you catch the stuff on the right day and just ok when not.

Choey, have you tried the canned Sicilian sardine pasta mixtures? We picked up one at Joseph's last week. I'm curious how it will be.

Rob, I usually keep a can in my pantry, but it's frankly not very good stuff. I typically punch it up a little with some anchovy filets, but mostly it's beyond saving. I've also tried to make the dish fresh, but there are at least two problems locally: the sardines we see here are Pacific and, though good in their own way, they do not have the same flavor as Atlantic sardines; also, the mountain fennel from Sicily is milder than our fennel. I've had the dish made in California with a locally grown fennel that was very good, but, alas, the sardines didn't work. I love the original so much, I content myself with this pale reminder of the greatness of the dish in situ. So, I live with the occasional ersatz pasta cu li sarde from a can, Vesuvio (maybe I'll trademark this).

BTW, the apotheosis of the dish in my experience was found in Agrigento on the south coast of Sicily, in the new town above the ancient ruins. Some Roman observed of the ancient Agrigentines (Greek Akragas) that "they built as if they would live forever, yet they ate as if there were no tomorrow."

Antonius wrote:Going back to something I was reminded of in your preceding post, there are were a number of 'Gallo-Italic' colonies in Sicily (also some in Southern Italy), that is to say, villages settled by immigrants from Northern Italy or neighbouring parts of Southern France. These villages formed little linguistic islands for a long time, perhaps with that being still the case to some degree, though I think the absorption must be pretty far advanced by now.

I have two half sisters, much older than I am, whose mother's family was from Guardia Piemontese. The dialect they spoke was considered very, very odd (and, therefore, funny and an object of ridicule) by the people in the neighborhood (even the Sicilians, and that's saying something). I was in college when I first learned about the persecution and migration of the Vaudois to the Piedmont and southern Italy, but by then it was too late to hear any of them speaking fossilized Occitan, much to my regret.

I visited Guardia once and found that there are still some speakers of the dialect (which they called "Guardiese") living in the quaint village, 500 meters above the Tyrhennian Sea.

Terrasini wrote:What about Arab/Middle Eastern Markets? What info can you give me there? I am looking for lamb intestines and I think the best place to find them is in Arab/Middle Eastern markets.

Antonius wrote: And to the north is Sahar Meat Market, on which I've been intending to post for some time now -- maybe later today.

Ecco:
http://lthforum.com/bb/viewtopic.php?p=45637#45637

Antonius

Thanks Antonius. I'll give that place a look. It's so great to live in such a culturally diverse city. I don't think I'll ever get tired of finding new places to eat.