"When you look at it from far away, you feel the harmony that's been created, but there's nothing casual in that harmony," says Ciccio Sultano, who runs the kitchen at Ragusa Ibla's Il Duomo restaurant and is arguably the island's best chef. He's talking about Sicilian architecture, particularly his Baroque hometown on a hill, but this is also a key to understanding his philosophy on cuisine. "Even from the inside you feel it
. . . you feel the layers of architecture piled atop one another. From past to present, history made them harmonious," he says. "When I make a recipe, I don't hide ingredients. I build upon them. It's stratified."
Now, a year after my first visit to Sicily, Sultano officially restarts the tour by coming at me with a layered spoonful of contrast.
"This," he says cryptically, "is Sicily."
Sultano had just spent a lot of time drawing a diagram of his one-bite course to explain the key contrast between sweet and bitter so that I would understand the idea. Finally, he threw in the towel and prepared the real thing.
The spoon combines a rectangle of raw snapper floating on a cloud of fresh ricotta with flecks of raw spring onion, all posed under a tiny dollop of caviar. The secret weapon, represented by a black dot on his diagram, is on the bottom of the spoon - a smudge of local Corbezzolo honey.
The honey is beguiling, more bitter than sweet and thick enough to be almost rough on the tongue. The textures and flavors mingle: raw milk cheese, raw fish, raw onion crunchiness, caviar's sea-saltiness. It's a mouthful of the Motherland.
I began traveling to Sicily and learning about its layers last year in a three-month effort to connect with my Sicilian heritage. Francesco Padova, who works for his family's almond and olive oil business, Mastri di San Basilio, became a friend and guide, highlighting the contrasts that make this island famous: old and new, bitter and sweet, and, above all, a culture unto itself.
