Holidays - modern and medieval

I don't know about you, but I'm gearing up for cooking out with my friends over the 4th of July weekend.  There's nothing so satisfying as a well-grilled burger with chips and good coleslaw and fabulous baked beans.  Not to mention all the tasty desserts people manage to come up with (I'm an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie girl myself).


So it always makes me think - what did medieval people do?  For sure not grilling burgers, especially in Sicily, although the classic movie shot of Henry VIII (was it Charles Laughton?) who was gnawing on a huge animal bone and throwing it over his shoulder ...


But Ysabella and Family weren't doing that, I don't think, although they may have been roasting bits of fried meat as snackies, they certainly had veggies galore and salad stuff (do you think they made honey mustard dressing?  probably not ...) and had lots of desserts made - at least in Sicily - from almonds, pistachios, sugar (yes, they grew sugar there) some of them called Chancellor's Buttocks and Virgin's Breasts.  I leave it to your research ingenuity to find those ...

Sailfish steaks in the market

Vegetable market in Sicily

Peasant dance in medieval times, with aprons

Pistachios, nuts, Egyptian pharoahs, Queen of Sheba, and other celebrities

So on to another delectable product of Sicily - the pistachio.  Sicily, Puglia, Campania and Ligura all produce pistachios and Sweet Sicily author Alessandre Dammone indicates it was the Arabs in the 10th century who recommended cultivation of that delicious nut on Sicily.  And there, on the slopes of Etna, in the province of Catania, is where most of Sicily's pistachios are grown.


One thing I didn't know (there's so much I don't know!) is that it's impossible to use modern farming techniques to harvest the pistachio so it is all done by hand.  If you ever wonder why pistachios are so expensive - that's why.  Although when Bill and I lived in Palermo, they were sold in bags on the street by vendors as snack foods and they were relatively cheap.


And as one might suspect, they are used in fabulous ways in gelato and dolce.  Yummmmy!!!!!