Our Sicilian counterpart on the waterfront
Your intrepid reporter visits the Mondello fish market in Palermo, Italy
The world over, wherever water meets land, there is a common denominator as old as humanity:
Fish markets.
Why they hold such fascination for me is mystifying, akin to the moment more than half a century ago when I first saw a map of Cape Cod and knew I wanted to go there (though no one in my family ever had). In the decades since I’ve prowled many docks, piers, fish markets, fillet houses and loading docks, local and afar.
Now I can add Sicily.
Mondello, at the fringe of muscular Palermo, perches on the sea with a fine sand beach that lures tourists – sound familiar? Brilliant early morning light illuminates a row of brightly painted wooden boats tethered to a wharf, backed by rose and yellow buildings glowing beneath a stunning hillside outcrop jutting to jagged heights, hard-etched shadows cast by tough vegetation on beige rock.
A Coast Guard station abuts a fishermen’s market. Mondello residents swing by in cars and motorcycles to peruse and buy, earlier the better.
The market is makeshift, if something centuries old can be called that. There is modern canvas shade but no ice; best to get this fish to a cool place straight away. Plastic totes contain what was retrieved in small boats at sunrise, single men working single days close to shore.
So what’s to buy?
The Sicilian coast is famous for sardina, sardines, which often wind up in the signature dish spaghetti con sardina. There is pesce spada, swordfish, less common now, and tonno, tuna taken as babies; the Sicilians know that so call them by the diminutive tonnetto.
Lampuga, dolphin fish (no relation to the mammal), make for nice fillets with dark flesh. Mustia, a smaller red fish with flaky white meat, is grilled whole and picked apart -- plenty of olive oil of course. Then staples of Sicilian diets; small calamari, squid, even smaller gamberetto, shrimp, that sure enough you can pop into your mouth like popcorn (good raw). Then polpo, octopus, still moving in the tub when you poke them, again small and young.
Tiny mesh nets these fishermen play out capture life we would consider immature, illegal. To our minds, killing fish before they have a chance to spawn at least once is terminal. Clearly this is not prevailing wisdom in Sicily.
The limitations of the vessels -- no big horsepower, no hydraulics -- is what maintains an inshore fishery that defies our idea of good stewardship. Then again, our management only emerged because we became so sophisticated and efficient that government regulations to protect the common wealth had to intervene.
Some take that as an indictment of our historic fleet, but I don’t, not in particular anyway. It is fact and facet of our economy. Successful entrepreneurs always chafe at limits, always focus on profit at the expense of resources. It’s called capitalism. Government should encourage that creativity and hard work, while protecting both workers and the environment from exploitation – easier said than done.
Prevailing wisdom in Mondello is that there is less to catch, and the next generation is not as interested in the chase or lifestyle. We share that sense with the Sicilians, as well as the wish that we didn’t.
We also share an emotion; thankfulness when we sit down to plates still laden with what fishermen offer.
Lovely. I hope I can see that one day.
Been there too, adore Sicily and its food. Good light to shine on our fishing industry, thank you.