Stephanie
Tantillo Fucile
Upcoming Cookbook!
In Italian, the translation is of Breadcrumbs is Mollica. But, we aren’t in Italy …we are in Sicilia. In Siciliano, we say Muddica.
When I first started to really put pen to paper about Sicily in 2016, what came out constantly was to travel around and eat the street food. There is no better way to experience the island. I wanted the book to explode with passion and feel gritty and alive. To have the readers feel like they were in the streets and not making dishes out of a book. I considered adding a few recipes, but half the recipe is being there on the street with the Sicilians. Sicilian Streats brings me back to Sicily when I’m not there, I can remember the sensations and all the incredible energy of the island.
Why a recipe book now? Because, COVID. Before 2020, before COVID-19, I said ‘take this book, fall in love with Sicily, and go.’ Just go! There was nothing but the wind beneath our wings to jet off and find ourselves wandering around Palermo and eating Sfincione by the sea in Mondello…why would I need to make a recipe when we can have the real thing?
2020 it was the first time in my life that ‘going to Sicily’ suddenly wasn’t an option. I was cut off from a place that felt like home, a place that had literally been home to me for times of my life. My Italian husband wasn’t able to leave the country or he wouldn’t be able to travel back. Instead, we were stuck, as everyone in the world, in one place. Our one bedroom Brooklyn apartment became our world and I needed to bring Sicily into it. I started cooking 100% Sicilian food and writing it down for the first time. Partially for sanity, for a feeling of adventure, but more importantly to feel connection to Sicily. From doing this, the importance of the recipes suddenly became clear as day. I need to bring Sicily not just alive in the pages but in peoples kitchens.
In this book you’ll find stories and the many complex history lessons of Sicilian food and Sicily itself. The layers of history for a deceitfully simple dish are astounding. Food on the streets typically have recipes that sound a lot like “one handful” “a little more than a pinch” “until the steam is thick”. I try to translate this into something tactile but sometimes, the steam just needs to be thick. It’ll make sense with practice!
The title of this book, Muddica, was not the original name. I had many more sophisticated sounding names the first go-around. Something never felt right, I felt like I was over-explaining or trying too hard. What is it, what is the essence of the Palermo-province kitchen? It's breadcrumbs. Breadcrumbs are more than the most staple ingredient; they are a way of life. Waste nothing. Bread is life. Flavor is everywhere. On a Sicilian table there is salt and breadcrumbs. Where there cannot be cheese, for economical reasons or because the dish has fish (one of the many rules you’ll learn in this book- no fish and cheese on the same plate) breadcrumbs come in. “Muddica, il Parmigiano dei Poveri”*… is the essence that was so close to me, I couldn’t see it.
Bread crumbs. Mollica....Muddica.
On a Sicilian table there is salt, pepper, and breadcrumbs. Sometimes only salt and breadcrumbs. Breadcrumbs are used so frequently in Sicilian cooking that it is a fundamental part of the kitchen, as much as extra virgin olive oil.
The reasons behind this high usage is vast, but can all be drawn back to “Nothing goes to waste”. As an example, in my Grandparents house there were three drawers for bread.
Drawer 1: fresh Bread
Drawer 2: one to two days old , this was for the bruschetta, panzanella salad
Drawer 3: Bread that was hard as a rock for the Muddica.
Not one crumb, not a single crumb, went to waste. Not only was it saved, bread in every state was made into something beautiful.
In Sicily, there is no such thing as the vegetable scrap, or discarded meat cuts, or any of the less desirable parts of anything finding their way into the compost bin. Fennel fronds are sacred, animal hooves are paired with the tongue to be dressed with lemons, and the best bread in the world will never have a single crumb on the floor. Instead, it will dress your pasta, top your pizza, blanket your fish and coat your meat.
While I will typically use the Italian word for recipes, there are some words that despite having an Italian counterpart are so profoundly Sicilian that the dialect word is the only way to respect it. Muddica, is exactly that.
For these recipes from Palermo, there are two things you must have in your kitchen above all else. Extra virgin olive oil, and Muddica. These are in most of the recipes, and for all your Sicilian cooking adventures you will want these on hand. I can go weeks without butter in my house and not notice. But I cannot go 2 days without olive oil and muddica.
To have muddica, you just need to buy good bread. It can be whole wheat, semolina, white flour, doesn’t matter just good crusty bread. Enjoy what you want for the fresh bread and break the rest up and just leave it out and let it dry. Once it's hard as rock, blend it in the food processor to make crumbs.Store them in a jar on your counter.
For some dishes, in particular baked or fried, you use them just as they are out of the jar. When the muddica are used to top a dish, as you would use grated cheese on pasta, we typically will toast them up. See recipe for toasted muddica below;
Muddica
Small drizzle extra virgin olive oil
Handful Breadcrumbs
Pinch oregano
In a small saute pan, heat up the olive oil so it just coats the bottom and toss in muddica an oregano. Keep the heat on a low-medium flame and keep the muddica in motion until they start to brown. Remove from heat.
