Using Sicilian Etiquette and Culinary Knowledge in Sicily by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Using Sicilian Etiquette and Culinary Knowledge in Sicily by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget 

One of the most enjoyable parts of my visit to Sicily was going to the i Ruderi Restaurant for Seafood in Acireale.

I used Alba Alotta’s La Cucina Siciliana di Mare seafood cookbook to learn about regional specialties.  (There are 400 recipes in this cookbook!)  I felt confident about ordering in restaurants, because I had also read Mary Tyler Simeti’s Pomp and Sustenance: Twenty-Five Centuries of Sicilian Food and Giuliano Bugialli’s Foods of Sicily and Sardinia and the Smaller Islands prior to my Sicilian trip.

Researching Italian food before visiting is a good idea, because Italian restaurants tend to offer what is fresh that day even if they have a printed menu.  The day’s offerings are either presented orally or the restaurant guest says what they would like and the waiter tells you what they have.

My reading of Italian cookbooks, particularly those of Marcella Hazan and Claudia Roden, has taught me that the order of an Italian meal follows this pattern typically:

-Aperitivo – hors d’oeuvre

-Primi – first course that is typically a pasta dish

-Secondi – meat, fish, or chicken

-Contorni – a vegetable dish that is served alongside the secondi

The waiters spoke English, but they let me order in Italian.  The menu for our first meal included:

-Aperitivi – Fried shrimp, arancini (deep fried cheese balls with a ground rice crust), and caponata made from chopped vegetables like eggplant and tomatoes served on toast with olive oil drizzled on it.

-Primi – Spaghetti with clams in white wine sauce, another Sicilian specialty.  This dish was served on a large, deep serving platter with enough food for my husband and I to have two helpings.  I liked the Baroque serving utensil, which was a pair of tongs with a flat, bottom size and a top side that looked like a lyre.

Being able to swirl spaghetti on a flat plate with your fork to eat it without the aid of a spoon is a skill like eating with chopsticks.  I am glad I have both skills.

-Secondi – Next came a grilled fishplate made up of swordfish fillet, shrimp, fish sausage, and a whole grilled fish that was the catch of the day.  (Swordfish is caught off the shores of eastern Sicily, particularly at Syracuse.  Tuna is the specialty of western Sicily.)  The waiter presented the seafood and fish to us before filleting the whole fish for us.  I squirted the fish with soft-skinned lemons and thought I was queen for the day.

We drank a white wine called Inzolia with our meal.  It was dry and fruity.  It made me think of a wine that might grow in volcanic soil made from centuries of lava and ash.

We ate lemon sorbet for dessert and ate homemade rolls to go with the dressing on the arugula salad that came with the grilled fish.  The bill for this meal was 60 Euros and included a bottle of water.  The meal was memorable and encouraged us to come back.

I went through La Cucina Siciliana di Mare looking for a different pasta dish to try at i Ruderi.  I thought spaghetti al sugo di gamberi looked good.  This is shrimp with a sauce enriched by cooking it with shrimp shells to give it punch.

When I asked for it, the waiter said they did not have it.  He suggested spaghetti with frutti di mare (seafood pasta), and I readily accepted.  This dish turned out to be a ritzy seafood dish of scampi, crab, clams and small shrimp with an enriched sauce as well.   The only other place where I have eaten such succulent seafood is coastal South Carolina where I spent my summers as a child.

We had the same grilled fish platter with Inzolia wine.  The fish was excellent again.  I Ruderi serves beautiful food in a beautiful décor.   The restaurant is large and has room for small parties and groups.   It is a spot that is worth the visit, as my touring guide of Sicily would say.

i Ruderi

Via Madonna della Grazie 104

95024, Acireale, Sicily, Italy

A photo of the grilled seafood and fish dish is below.

By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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