The last time we checked in with Michael Powell and Juergen Horn at For 91 Days, they were preparing to leave Bolivia and move to Palermo, Italy. Of course, part of soaking up a culture is the wonderful food in the different places they’ve been. It turns out that the people of Sicily love fried food.
We’ve already sampled an unhealthy share of fried Sicilian delicacies, and plan on eating a lot more. The Ballaró Market, south of the Cathedral, is an excellent place to sample some cheap grub. We tried panelle, which are chickpea fritters thought to be Arabic in origin, and crocchè: mashed potatoes and eggs covered in breadcrumbs. But my favorite was perhaps the rascature, a dish which literally translates into “scrapes”. These oddly shaped balls are a mixture of the panelle and crocchè, and whatever else can be scraped off the bottom of the cooking pan.
The thought of eating the fried “scrapes” from a little stall in a street market shouldn’t be appetizing, but my stomach grumbles as I type. I wants them rascatures, and I wants them NOW!
Although you can’t actually taste them, you can read about and see pictures of the different dishes at their blog. Link
