Eat Smart in Sicily: How to Decipher the Menu, Know the Market Foods & Embark on a Tasting Adventure (Eat Smart in Sicily: How to Decipher the Menu, ... to Decipher the Menu, Know the Market Foods) [Paperback]

Joan Peterson (Author), Marcella Croce (Author), Susan Chwae (Illustrator)

Book Description

Series: Eat Smart in Sicily: How to Decipher the Menu, Know the Market Foods | Publication Date: June 24, 2008

Find the heart of Sicilian culture through its sumptuous cuisine
Rich with seafood, citrus, olives, and almond sweets, the cuisine of the sun-drenched island of Sicily reflects the influence of Greeks, Norman French, Tunisians, and Italians, among others. Unlike guidebooks that sweep Sicily into an overview of Italy, this latest addition to the award-winning Eat Smart series focuses solely on the cuisine of Sicily.

Eat Smart in Sicily provides an historical overview of the peoples who have lived there and their contributions to Sicilian cuisine, with attention given to the fare distinct to the villages and urban centers of Sicily's four regions. A helpful guide to Sicilian menus, with English translations of Italian (or Sicilian) words, makes ordering food in Sicily an easy and immediately rewarding experience. Highlighting regional recipe mainstays, Joan Peterson and Marcella Croce provide tips to shopping for traditional ingredients in Sicily and at home. The book also includes a comprehensive glossary of foods, kitchen utensils, and cooking methods to prepare authentic Sicilian specialties at home or abroad.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Eat Smart in Sicily is a travel book that you can enjoy in your kitchen long before you tuck it into your suitcase. Authors Joan Peterson and Marcella Croce survey the rich history of Sicily and its culinary influences, offer tips on finding the best local foods, and include glossaries and restaurant guides that ensure successful dining experiences while visiting. One chapter shares more than 25 authentic recipes that can be savored as a preview or a reminiscence of a remarkable and culturally significant island. --Fra Noi Newspaper, Chicago

Sicily is the melting-pot of the Mediterranean, having Phoenician, Greek, Roman, Arabic, Norman, Germanic and French influences, and sitting down to a meal in Palermo is much more than stopping in at the local fast food franchise. Learning more about the food and history of Sicily will make your visit so much richer. It's what Epicurean Traveler is all about, and it is where the EAT SMART guides excel.

EAT SMART IN SICILY by Joan Peterson and Marcella Croce, is much more than the translation of a typical Sicilian menu. The first 20 pages of this 145-page guide are devoted to the history of Sicily, with the particular focus on how various conquerors affected (or didn't affect) the cuisine.

Whether it is an indictment of the way history is taught in college, or a validation of the fine writing provided by the authors, EAT SMART IN SICILY explained more about Sicilian history and its various occupiers, than I had gleaned from reading travel guidebooks, or taking History of Western Civilization in college.

Other sections explain local foods, provinces within Sicily, shopping the food markets of Sicily, helpful phrases to use in a restaurant, and an extensive menu guide. You will also find 28 Sicilian recipes here, so you can get a flavor of the island before you go there.

... if you're going to Sicily, you need this guide your visit will be the richer for it. Part phrase book, part cookbook, part travel book, each EAT SMART guide is the perfect guide for the Epicurean Traveler. --Scott Clemens, Epicurean-Traveler.com

Sicily is, of course, not only a place of romance, but home to its own particular cuisine, distinct from cuisines of the Italian mainland. To help travelers navigate this culinary landscape, Joan Peterson has added one more culture to her extremely useful EAT SMART series, this time co-authored with native Sicilian Marcella Croce. They provide a culinary history of the island, describing local foods, dishes, recipes, and food markets. The lengthy glossary and menu guide give readers significantly more information than does a general traveler's dictionary. Anyone who loves travel as much for food as for all its other pleasures, will find this an invaluable guide to a realm where food is such an important part of the life and culture of the people. Highly recommended for public libraries. --Library Journal

About the Author

Joan Peterson is an experienced world traveler and the author of the EAT SMART guides to the food of Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Morocco, Peru, Poland, Sicily and Turkey. Each book has been designed for travelers and food lovers like her who want to navigate menu and market with confidence.

Marcella Croce was born in Palermo, Sicily, and is a journalist and author. For almost twenty years she has been a teacher and coordinator of Elderhostel Programs in Sicily organized by Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Ginkgo Press; 1 edition (June 24, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0977680118
• ISBN-13: 978-0977680115
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #991,444 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best yet in the 'Eat Smart' series, October 25, 2008

By 

Jeannette Belliveau "Author, "An Amateur'... (Baltimore, MD United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Eat Smart in Sicily: How to Decipher the Menu, Know the Market Foods & Embark on a Tasting Adventure (Eat Smart in Sicily: How to Decipher the Menu, ... to Decipher the Menu, Know the Market Foods) (Paperback)

If the recipes and color photos in "Eat Smart in Sicily" don't get you looking at possible airfares to Sicily for a gourmet eating holiday, nothing will.

This latest in the "Eat Smart" series features a photo spread of dishes incorporating fish, eggplant, saffron and beef, as well as concoctions such as a beautifully textured Eastern lamb made of marzipan.

Recipes tell how to make fried artichoke leaves, orange-flavored pork, stuffed mahi-mahi rolls, and Arab-influenced dishes including couscous with fish. Another recipe I plan to try at home is a pasta dish dressed with a pesto of pistachios, almonds and basil -- it's got to be delectable.

At minimum, "Eat Smart in Sicily" will get readers into the kitchen and trying to recreate their own taste of Sicily or visiting Italian restaurants specializing in Sicilian food as well as the more prevalent styles found in U.S. restaurants, based on the cuisines of Naples, Tuscany, Bologna and Florence.

As with others in the "Eat Smart" series, "... in Sicily" is handsomely illustrated and meticulously researched, with a history of the Mediterranean island as it relates to food, noting the contributions of Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Norman French and others.

A chapter on local foods notes the lack historically of meat proteins on the island, the Sicilian interest in wild vegetables, and the local quality of citrus fruits and passion for gelati, now nearly as popular in the United States.

Joan Peterson of Madison, Wisc., the driving force behind other "Eat Smart" guides to Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, India, Peru and other good-eating destinations, joined forces with Sicilian native Marcella Croce for this latest entry in the series. Let's hope that it makes its way in many suitcases and backpacks belonging to travelers headed to this world crossroads of history and food.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A real disappointment!, March 28, 2009

By 

Ravenous Fellow (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eat Smart in Sicily: How to Decipher the Menu, Know the Market Foods & Embark on a Tasting Adventure (Eat Smart in Sicily: How to Decipher the Menu, ... to Decipher the Menu, Know the Market Foods) (Paperback)

I bought this book because of the five-star reviews it's gotten. What a disappointment! The coverage is superficial; the recipes don't mention ingredients in the list; the prose is simpleminded. The author has written eight other guides in the series, but it seems as if this book is the result of a whirlwind tour. It reads more like an expanded, hastily-done magazine article, with only a few pages on each of the regions and their specialties. A good guidebook's food section would be a better value; Sicily deserves better! Mary Taylor Simeti's POMP AND SUSTENANCE is far preferable to this.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Invaluable tips for shopping in both the Sicilian open air food markets as well as their modern supermarkets, July 9, 2008

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eat Smart in Sicily: How to Decipher the Menu, Know the Market Foods & Embark on a Tasting Adventure (Eat Smart in Sicily: How to Decipher the Menu, ... to Decipher the Menu, Know the Market Foods) (Paperback)

Joan Peterson has now authored and/or co-authored nine superbly crafted and incredible informative travel guides with a distinctive culinary orientation. The newest addition to her impressive roster of titles is "Eat Smart In Sicily: How To Decipher The Menu, Know The Market Foods & Embark On A Tasting Adventure" which she co-authored with Sicilian native, journalist and author Marcella Croce. Enhanced for the armchair browser with a section of color photography showcasing dishes, foods, and chefs, "Eat Smart In Sicily" truly lives up to its name and the sterling reputation of the entire 'Eat Smart' series. Along with an historical overview focused on the origins of Sicily's culinary diversity and a quick tour of local Sicilian foods and their variations, travelers are providing with invaluable tips for shopping in both the Sicilian open air food markets as well as their modern supermarkets. With the inclusion of resource lists, helpful phrases, a menu guide, recommended restaurants, and even a thoroughly 'user friendly' Menu Guide, "Eat Smart In Sicily" is a 'must' for anyone traveling there for either business or pleasure or both!