Foodie Cinema | Sicily: Stromboli and the Respiro of the Leopard in Paradise

Stromboli and Respiro: the island in the island

Emanuele Crialese’s film Respiro (2002), winner of that year’s Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival, was shot entirely in Lampedusa. There is water all around, leading to North Africa on one side, to Sicily and the rest of the world on the other. Crialese’s film is recounted by Grazia (Valeria Golino), the mother of three children and wife of a fisherman (Vincenzo Amato), who, depressed by the coercive life on the island, simulates suicide which the community takes for a miracle. In his fourth film, Terraferma, Crialese once again examines the topic of immigration with regards to the arrival of North African refugees and migrants on the island, an issue which he tackled from a different perspective in Nuovo Mondo which recounts Italian emigration to the United States at the turn of the century.
The claustrophobia that a small island can generate is also a theme at the heart of Roberto Rossellini’s Stromboli where Karin (Ingrid Bergman) a refugee from Eastern Europe who marries Antonio, a fisherman, at the end of WWII, following him to Stromboli, will live different life. The poverty-stricken life of the couple on the island which revolves around little more than fishing and is made more complex by earthquakes and eruptions, becomes claustrophobic to Karin who decides to flee by climbing the active volcano. The sea surrounding Stromboli makes the world and the opportunities offered by life now that the suffering of war is over seem ever more distant to Karin. A distance that is only bridged by the dream of wealth represented by an abundant catch of palamite (small tuna), by the culling of red tuna or a freshly caught octopus (one we can imagine cooked all’inferno or alla Luciana). There is a memorable scene of the culling of yellow fin tuna shot documentary style by the master of neorealism with particular care in the details.

Tuna, tonnare and fish couscous: a short history of Sicilian cooking

The culling of red tuna in the tonnara nets that Rossellini records in Stromboli is an ancient ritual that first begun in Sicily in 827, brought to the island by Abad Al Furat who built the first castle and tonnara outpost in Favignana, in the Aegadian Islands, which was also the last to stop working in 2008. Practiced since prehistory, tuna fishing reached its peak and widest spread in antiquity with the Romans between 3rd century BC and 3rd century AD, up to the Arab invention of the tonnara (or almadraba). The tonnara is a collection of fishing nets that are linked to create a series of “rooms” that the fish swim through until they reach the end, the so-called “death chamber”, where they are raised up by a bottom net so that they can be harpooned and dragged onto the boats by the fishermen.
Sicilian food has been influenced by all the populations that have left a trace, intermingled or dominated, developing a unique, spectacular and refined nature over the centuries.
It was first influenced by the Greeks who brought oil, wine, honey and sweets, while the best of Sicily’s cooks were often invited to Athens, Sparta and Corinth where their work was most appreciated. Sicily produced two of the greatest cooks of the time: Labdacos of Syracuse and Miteco Siculo, and the first great gastronome: Archestratus of Gela, author of Gastronomia, a poem that discusses food and travel: “…Miteco from Syracuse, a cultured and erudite man, emanated the knowledge of Sicilian food and taught Greece the art of flavouring dishes in the Sicilian way, the most sought after at the time” (Domenico Scinà, Storia letteraria di Sicilia ne' tempi greci).
The Romans followed the Greeks, bringing with them ingredients and the tradition of offal: many dishes featuring animal innards are still present in Sicilian dishes including stigghiole and meusa. The real revolution in Sicily’s food took place with the Arabs who brought lemons, oranges, pasta, saffron and new fishing techniques. Flavours and spices overlapped and sweet dishes took on new forms and ingredients, it is also said that a fish pasta was extremely popular during the Arab domination of the island: pasta with sardines. Some suggest that the Arabs also brought rice, later traded by the Spanish, although other sources believe that rice derived directly from the Spanish domination and did not enjoy much success on the island, apart from use in arancini and a few other dishes. Success was instead enjoyed by couscous, also brought by the Arabs, which is cooked with fish and shellfish, including lobster, in the Trapani area and the Aegadian islands.
Then came the Normans who brought onions, sweet shortcrust pastry and new cooking techniques, who administered and regulated fishing and facilitated the intermingling of popular cooking and the “elite” food of the wealthy.
Spain had a great influence on Sicilian food, especially in terms of sweet dishes, fried food and the use of breadcrumbs. It was the Spanish who brought pan di spagna (sponge cake) a key ingredient in cassata and were also responsible for the technique of the cannolo.

Sicily paradise of cinema

In Cinema Paradiso (1988), winner of the Cannes Grand Prix and Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, Giuseppe Tornatore tells the story of a small boy, Salvatore, and his love of films through his relationship with Alfredo (Philippe Noiret) the elderly projectionist at the cinema of their small village in the Sicilian heartland. Alfredo loses his eyesight after the projector catches fire because of the schicetta (tin dish of food) placed for warming near the strong light of the machine. Who knows what was in that schicetta: busiate alla norma, anelletti al forno or perhaps a simple spaghetto al pomodoro?
Sicily loves cinema and its beauty and its ancient contradictions have provided a natural set for over 300 films since 1913, including various masterpieces of Italian and world cinema. Perhaps this was the secret wish that Tornatore desired for his homeland with Cinema Paradiso: that it could soon become the California of Europe, the Hollywood of the Mediterranean.

The deep breathing of the Leopard

“… if we want everything to stay as it is, then everything must change!”
The words that Tancredi (Alain Delon) says to Don Fabrizio Salina (Burt Lancaster) in The Leopard directed by Luchino Visconti, Palme d’or at the 1963 Cannes Film Festival, truly sum up the spirit that has kept the Sicilians and their culture intact despite a thousand dominations. Visconti’s transposition of Tomasi di Lampedusa’s story focuses on the conflict between the new and old worlds in Sicily at the time of the Unification of Italy which many noble families, loyal to the ruling Bourbon dynasty, perceived as yet another invasion, but others saw as an opportunity for rebirth and freedom from centuries of subjugation.
All these presences, these invasions, have made Sicily’s cuisine a medley, one that has ably incorporated these influences transforming them into a single culinary approach considered to be the basis of the Mediterranean diet, inscribed as Intangible World Heritage in 2008.
These words also encapsulate the thousand-year-old truth, in a land conquered so many times, of a population that was never fully subjugated to its masters and a culture that has the deep breathing of the Leopard.

Pasta with lobster in broth

The waters between Favignana and Marettimo in the Aegadian Islands do not only hold tuna but also possibly the best lobsters in the Mediterranean. This is why, couscous with fish or with shellfish and lobster is commonly found in these islands and, more generally, in the Trapani region. The cooking method is similar to a fish soup with the addition of couscous made separately. Herewith, we suggest the recipe typically found in Marettimo: pasta with lobster in broth.

INGREDIENTS
Lobster, onion, stick of cinnamon, tomato puree, parsley, oil, salt, pepper

METHOD
Fry diced onion and parsley in oil in a casserole until the onion is golden. Add the tomato puree and some water. Quarter the lobster and cook in the broth when ready on a low heat for approximately 2 hours.
Meanwhile, boil water and break spaghetti (n. 3 or 4) into 1cm long pieces. Half cook the pasta, and drain, then return the pasta to the pan, add the lobster broth and finish cooking.

Recipe to make your own trailer on food and film in Sicily

This game is for anyone who wants to make a homemade trailer for Stromboli, Respiro, The Leopard on the theme of food. We’re providing the time codes for the film clips. Any edit program will work for this. Insert the following data into the timeline and you’ll have your trailer in minutes.

• Download the film titles for Stromboli
• attach to sequence from 37.12 to 37.48
• attach to sequence from 58.35 to 59.18
• download the film titles for Respiro
• attach to sequence from 27.11 to 28.13
• download the film titles for The Leopard
• attach to sequence from 39.53 to 40.15
• attach to sequence from 41.40 to 42.30
• attach to sequence from 50.33 to 52.25
• attach to sequence from 1.02.44 to 1.08.40
• add the end title card “End”
• enjoy it in company, and if you haven’t yet seen the films, watch them.