The Sicily Files: Vittorio's Artichokes

I’m not sure exactly what I had expected, but the countless Fiat 126s and precarious-looking three-wheeled vehicles took me by surprise. I wondered momentarily whether the Boeing-737 had taken me back 30 years as well as 1,000 miles south, which would have explained the mysterious hold-up at Palermo airport.

Arriving in the dark, the edge of the Sicanian mountains were only just visible as the taxi then sped down the A29, almost as far west as one can go, into the province of Trapani.

Come Sunday, moseying into the ancient fishing town of Mazara del Vallo, to find the only postcards for sale looking as though they’d been there since the assassinations of Falcone and Borsellino, the possibility of time travel had again crossed my mind.

Yet, the mandatory FFP2 masks and eerily good 4G connection confirmed that it was still 2022. Rural-dwelling Sicilians just had a remarkable way of giving purpose to and keeping alive the things and the folk that most of us would’ve rendered useless long ago. With that, they give the weary and discouraged visitor a new breath, too.

Indeed, despite the unfortunate toileting habits of the elderly greyhound, dog-sitting for a stranger was certainly a crazy, yet brilliant, mini-life-crisis-instigated decision.

Accordingly, it shouldn’t have been so surprising when a chirpy, sun-wrinkled octogenarian in a tuk-tuk hastened up my weather-beaten track one morning to hand over an enormous bag of home-grown artichokes. Vittorio, I discovered, was the proud owner of the adjacent plot, sporting row upon row of perfectly spaced grapevines. With the most affable, toothy grin, he listened as I babbled in shamefully infantile Italian as to the whereabouts of his usual neighbour. Accepting the bag from him, with slight trepidation I watched as the four dogs surrounded him exercising the tuk-tuk’s fairly redundant turning circle and he bumbled away.

Breakfast on the morning in question had been Pane Mafalda – Sicilian semolina and sesame seed bread – from the local Panificio, with last year’s thick-cut tangerine marmalade, and primo sale – mild sheep’s milk cheese whose name means ‘first salt’, referring its early stage of maturation. Fresh oranges, olives, and loquats were gathered daily from the garden, which completely surrounded the property, and therefore always promised a good spot for one’s sun lounger. The lemon tree burst with fruits so voluptuous that even Dolly Parton would envy their form. Five minutes on foot met the Mediterranean Sea; and I couldn’t complain when one had to climb on the roof to reboot the solar-powered hot water system, because the view across the Sicilian Strait had me seriously researching visa requirements.

I’d never bothered cooking artichokes before. Having always struck me as having an insubstantial ratio of edible matter to fibrous, inedible leaves, they seemed better for looking at. Yet, in the spirit of the land, taking a lemon from the garden, a bulb of garlic from the pantry, oodles of extra virgin olive oil, and a chilled bottle of Catarratto; Vittorio’s pep and radiance suddenly made perfect sense.