Palermo Culture

Palermo’s street food is a serious cuisine rather than a snack culture, and much of it is Arab in origin. Panelle are chickpea fritters; sfincione is a thick, soft, oniony focaccia; arancine are stuffed fried rice balls — and Palermo insists on the feminine, arancina, against Catania’s arancino, which is a genuine and unresolved dispute. Pani ca meusa, a roll filled with sliced spleen, is the local test of nerve.

The sweets are Arab too in lineage: cannoli, cassata built on ricotta and marzipan, and frutta martorana, marzipan modelled and painted as fruit, traditionally made for the first of November.

The markets — Ballarò, the Capo, the Vucciria — are laid out as souks, with goods sold by shouted rhythmic calls, the abbanniata. The Vucciria has declined into a nightlife area; Ballarò is the one that still works as a market.

The Teatro Massimo is the largest opera house in Italy and the third largest in Europe. It was closed for twenty-three years and reopened in 1997, which Palermo treats as a symbol of the city’s wider recovery.