A gastronomic homage to Andrea Camilleri, master of literature and….cuisine

Beyond rhetoric, the figure of Andrea Camilleri, who passed away at the age of 93, is bound to remain fundamental for the Italian literature of the twentieth century. Not just because he gave a character comparable to the only , and likewise friend, Maigret, that is Inspector Montalbano, to the collective imagination , but also because he was able to keep alive and save a rich and beautiful language as Sicilian, crucial in the narrative flow of his novels, for its sounds, expressions, and names. Starting with the names of the recipes, as anyone who came up against one of his 27 novels dedicated to Salvo Montalbano can’t have felt hungry, at some point. The Inspector, a complex, brusque but charming character, is above all a gastronomist of absolute value. The journalist Carlo Ottaviano, among the most important signatures of the Italian gastronomic journalism, wanted to remind, for WineNews, this character through three symbolic dishes of the Sicilian cuisine, among the most loved by Inspector Montalbano, quoting Andrea Camilleri’s writings, complete with Sicilian expressions. First of all, the Sicilian arancini (from “Gli arancini di Montalbano”): “Gesù, gli arancini di Adelina! Li avevo assaggiati solo una volta: un ricordo che sicuramente gli era trasùto nel Dna, nel patrimonio genetico. Adelina ci metteva due jornate sane sane a pripararli. Ne sapeva, a memoria, la ricetta...”. Then beccafico sardines ( from “Il ladro di merendine”): “S’arrisbigliò malamente: i linzòla, nel sudatizzo del sonno per via del chilo e mezzo di sarde a beccafico che la sera avanti s’era sbafat, gli si erano strettamente arravugliate torno torno il corpo...”. Lastly the caponata (from “La gita a Tindari”): “Appena aperto il frigorifero, la vide. La caponatina! Sciavuròsa, colorita, abbondante, riempiva un piatto funnùto, una porzione per almeno quattro pirsone...”. Three symbolic dishes, among the many, told and evoked by Camilleri, to remember him even so, as a lover and connoisseur of the Sicilian cuisine, that with great care spoke with generations of readers.