Postcard from Sicily - Maria Fidone's Kitchen

Our Viking Life culinary journey takes us to the small town of Frigintini just outside of Modica where we spend a memorable morning with one of Sicily's best "country cooks".

“I don’t know how to measure, I feel it with my hands.” Maria Fidone

Maria Fidone cooks the caponata

In Maria Fidone’s sunny kitchen at Cucina Casereccia in southeastern Sicily the makings of caponata – celery, red peppers and eggplant - cook on the front of the stove. A rabbit stews on the back burner waiting for carrots, potatoes and other colorful vegetables to enrich the broth. Dough for sciacci is rolled, layered with tomato and cheese and carefully folded into a long flattish loaf shape ready for the oven. Daughter Grazia is rolling sheets of pasta for ravioli then expertly adding a ricotta filling then cutting and crimping the squares. Like spectators at a tennis match our attention bounces back and forth between Maria at the stove and Grazia and the pasta. Suddenly the air is punctuated with a staccato sound – rat-a-tat-tat. It’s Grazia using a strange homemade contraption that marries a Black & Decker hand drill to the head of a cavatelli maker. We are all mesmerized and amused as the clever contraption grabs hold of sheets of pasta and spits out perfect cavatelli shapes. Standing in the doorway her father, the creator of the “cavatelli drill”, smiles bashfully at our obvious admiration of his machine.

Except for the clunky pasta contraption, most everything in Maria’s kitchen is prepared with “the knife”, a plastic handled 4” paring knife, the kind you find encased in a blister card and hanging on a supermarket display “The knife” is the only cutlery visible in the restaurant kitchen and Maria and Grazia share it. It cuts onion eggplant, red peppers, garlic and celery. She uses it to cut through rabbit bone. It slices sheets of pasta dough into long strips and cuts the ravioli into squares. It serves as a scraper – both on the counter and in the pan. Maria picks marjoram from the kitchen garden and minces it in her hand with “the knife.” There are no cutting boards; everything is prepped on the granite countertop or in the hand. Onions for the caponata never touch a flat surface. They are nestled in the palm of Maria’s able hand and expertly chopped.

"The Knife"

According to Elaine Trigiani, culinary guide on our Viking Life journey through Sicily, “the knife” is the cutlery of the Sicilian home cook. Early in her career Elaine, an American who has lived in Italy for the past 12 years, toted her fine German- made chef knives to cook in the home of her Sicilian relatives. Her offer to lend her prized knives for the formidable kitchen tasks at hand was met with scoffs and knitted eyebrows. Gently rebuffed, she was handed “the knife”.

Maria’s pots and pans are of supermarket variety, too. There are no layers of clad materials to promote conductivity, no cool grip handles. The pans are thin stainless steel, some missing knobs and handles. “The knife” and the cookware are the professional tools she employs to cook for the 95 grateful diners who pack her restaurant for lunch and dinner.

Maria Fidone considers herself a cook, not a chef, but she is revered by chefs who make pilgrimages to her restaurant in Frigintini just outside of Modica. The “big deal chefs” refer to her as the best of the traditional grandmother cooks in the countryside of the Iblean mountains in southeast Sicily. She is noted for her honest interpretation of traditional Modican recipes and has run her casual restaurant in Frigintini for the past 21 years simply preparing her mother’s, grandmother’s and mother-in-law’s recipes.

Grazia and the amazing cavatelli contraption

There is no doubt that this is a female kitchen and the sole man, Maria’s husband, wisely stands slightly outside the doorway ready to fetch, tote and wash a dish when beckoned. We are ten lucky women who are allowed to spend the day with Maria and Grazia. It’s Monday and the restaurant is closed so we have the run of the place, watching, questioning, ooh-ing, aah-ing and laughing . In Italian and English we speak the secret language of women – one that is born of universal female experience and innate knowing. It is a language that needs no interpreter.

When the last dish comes out of the oven, we head for the dining room to sample the results of the morning work. We talk of our culinary tour of Sicily and recount the dining adventures of the past week. We’ve met a parade of handsome chefs in starched white jackets. We’ve seen the gleaming stainless steel kitchens of Michelin starred restaurants. We’ve tasted inventive dishes created by daring young chefs who are pushing the boundaries of their native cooking, and turning the attention of the culinary world to this ancient island.

We’re pretty sure that the anonymous Michelin inspectors don’t visit this little restaurant so we take a vote around the table and bestow our own three star rating on Maria Fidone’s. We leave a post-it note on the wall inviting all to see Maria as we see her –with the imaginative young chefs standing on her tiny shoulders. With the blazing fire of culinary revolution, they shatter the boundaries of tradition. And in her sunny kitchen, Maria Fidone is keeper of the flame.

To join us on next year's Viking Life trip to Sicily visit: www.thevikinglife.com

For more pictures of our day at Maria Fidone's visit:  http://on.fb.me/rrkp3m