Holy Cannoli!

Palermo ranks as one of the world’s top streetfood destinations, which means it’s time to give mainland Italy the boot and fly to Sicily instead. Melanie van Zyl ate her way to the heart of cannoli country

- Melanie Van Zyl

My first taste of Sicily is a palm-sized ball of deep-fried rice with a gooey pistachio pesto centre. It’s simultaneously soft and crunchy, perfectly spherical … and also, female. “Now pay attention,” says Francesca Incao, the fabulously expressive Italian guide taking me on a historical walking tour of Palermo. “For us, this food is a female named arancina!” She emphasises the “a” sound with a flourish of her slender hand, “and it is the shape of an orange. No arancino”. She almost hisses the last word.

At the other end of Sicily, in the eastern town of Catania – home to the football club that’s the Palermo team’s fiercest rival – these saffron-flavoured street snacks are deemed male and named arancino. And that makes perfect sense when you observe that they’re made with a more pointed tip.

Francesca continues rattling off her insider’s info: “Here in the capital, the toilets don’t smell like roses, we like to interrupt each other – it’s not impolite, just an attitude – and you should always carry a Kleenex.” She doesn’t elaborate on exactly why, but I have to agree that having a tissue is a good travel mantra wherever you go.

Palermo is not an immediately enchanting city. You can walk blissfully down a charming cobbled street only to be confronted by a pile of rubbish, or step on one of many landmines left by stray dogs. It’s mad and messy – all to be expected in a city with a history of invasions that makes Game of Thrones seem tame. Sicily has hosted the Ancient

Greeks, followed by Arab settlers, then the Normans, Spaniards and most recently, the notorious mafia (the first rule of the street: do not ask the locals about the mafia, unless you know you’re talking to a tour guide).