How to find Palermo's oldest protector

It seems that Palermo is a city that needs a lot of protection.

 As we have told you on another occasion, before Saint Rosalia, Palermo had no more and no less than four protector Saints, Saint Oliva, Saint Ninfa, Saint Agatha and Saint Cristina, represented in the Quattro Canti. Then, Saint Rosalia saved Palermo from the plague and became the only Saint and Patron of the city.

 "Only" religiously speaking, because the city has another lay protector, this time male and much older than Santa Rosalia.

 He is the Genius of Palermo.

If you've passed by piazza Rivoluzione you've probably seen him. It's the statue above the fountain in the middle of the square. 

The Genius of Palermo is depicted as a bearded man, with a crown on his head and with another rather peculiar element: a snake that seems to be feeding from his chest and, sometimes, with a dog lying at his feet.

But who is this Genius? It is difficult to know exactly as his figure is shrouded in myth. It is believed to have pre-Roman origins and its original function was to serve as protection of places.

 The most shared meaning is that the Genius is the representation of the city, the "genius loci", the protective spirit of a place.

The one in piazza Rivoluzione is just one of the "Geniuses" that you can find walking around Palermo, but there are many more. It is said that, if you look hard enough, there are as many as 16 geniuses hidden around Palermo.

 At least five are well visible, some in the open, like the one you can find in Villa Giulia, in the Botanical Garden (Orto Botanico), or near the Vucciria, called Genio del Garraffo, known popularly as Palermo the great (Palermu lu grandi, in Sicliano).

Genius Orto Botanico

 And, yes, of course, if there is a “great” one, it means that there is another one called “the small”, which is in... Maybe it's time to discover it for yourself and go out tracing through streets, buildings, fountains, as if it were a "treasure hunt".

 But we will share a secret with you.

To help you, the Regione Sicilia has created an App with which you can follow his trail and that you can download here: Itinerary of the Genius of Palermo.

How to Eat Gelato with Brioche

Refreshing instructions for eating ice cream with brioche

The best way to combat the Sicilian heat is with an ice cream, un gelato. But in Sicily things are not that simple, there is no such thing as "an ice cream" and that's it.

 To enter a gelato shop is to enter a new universe full of possibilities in which you will have to make some of the hardest decisions of your life.

 The first will be to decide whether you want gelato or granita.

 Let's say you go for gelato.

 Then, to the classic decision between cone or coppetta, in Sicily a majestic third option is added: the brioche. Depending on the area of Sicily where you are, may or may not have a "tuppo", the small bun on the top.

 Let's say you go for the brioche.

 Then, the ice-cream maker will cut it in half, and you will be faced with the next decision: what flavor do you want? Che gusto?

 But be careful, because, although he said it in the singular, it's a trap. In reality, he means, what flavors do you want.

 It is frowned upon to choose only one flavor, in the singular, but two or even three.

Here it is important that you know the first unwritten law of ice cream choices: never mix fruit flavors with milk flavors. For example: lemon and watermelon is fine or pistachio and almond, but they will look at you with a weird face if you choose lemon and almond.

 With a huge palette they will fill the brioche with your chosen flavors.

 And you may think it ends here, but you're wrong.

 The next question is whether you want to add whipped cream or not. Obviously, you say yes, you have no way out. They will thread a spoon, give you napkins and you can enjoy your gelato con la brioche con aggiunta di panna.

 Don't forget to use both hands!

Eating Street Food in Palermo on German TV!

Palermo is the capital of Sicily, a region located at the southern tip of Italy. It's known for its rich history, stunning architecture, and of course, delicious food. Palermo street food is a vibrant and exciting scene, offering a wide variety of flavors and dishes to tempt any palate.

Some of the most popular Palermo street food items include:

• Arancini: These are fried rice balls that are typically filled with meat, cheese, or vegetables.

• Panelle: Chickpea fritters that are crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.

• Sfincione: A savory chickpea flour flatbread that is topped with cheese, tomato sauce, and other toppings.

• Cannoli: Fried pastry shells filled with ricotta cheese and other sweet fillings.

• Cassata: A ricotta cake that is flavored with candied fruit and liqueur.

If you're ever in Palermo, be sure to try some of the amazing street food that the city has to offer! It's a great way to experience the local culture and flavors.

Giorgio on German TV!

Check out Palermo Street Food’s Giorgio on German TV!

The Palermo part of the video starts at 2:20.

Palermo street food guide

We follow Serena, who is running a pasta manufacture in Germany right in the state where my broadcast station is located. The video "Sizilien genießen" on ARD Mediathek takes viewers on a culinary journey through Sicily, highlighting the island’s rich food culture influenced by its scenic landscapes, history, and diverse communities. Serena Loddo, a gourmet shop owner from Limburg, explores Sicilian towns, meeting with local producers and artisans to discover unique ingredients and flavors. From the bustling streets of Palermo to the views of Mount Etna, the program showcases Sicily's specialties and the traditions behind them. This cultural exploration serves as inspiration for Loddo's gourmet selections back home.

It's in German though, but you can see how much love we put into pictures of food, landscape and the presentation of people.

In Palermo: Ficus macrophylla, Albero di Falcone, Falcone Tree

Sicily's rich history is well known and can be seen, for example, in its Greek temples or in its Arab-Norman churches. But Sicilian history can not only be found in its architecture.

In Palermo, even the trees can be monuments and witnesses of memory. Today we want to talk about two very special trees for the city, both of the same species: Ficus macrophylla, also called Ficus magnoloides, an evergreen tree of the Moraceae's family.

The first by antiquity is the Ficus of piazza Marina, in the Kalsa district, 160 years old, measuring 30 meters and with a circumference of more than 20. It is the largest exotic tree in Europe and was declared a monumental tree.

It is so big that its aerial roots exceed the park's fence, but to see it closer, you can enter the Garibaldi Garden, which was designed by the architect Filippo Basile in the mid-nineteenth century.

 The second Ficus is the one located in via Emanuele Notarbartolo in front of the portal of the former home of Judge Giovanni Falcone. After his assassination on May 23rd, 1992, known as the Capaci massacre, hundreds of Palermitans spontaneously came to his house and began to leave messages, objects, letters under the tree, as a sign of mourning and solidarity.

 Named "Falcone's tree" since then, today, more than 30 years after his murder, the Ficus continues to be filled with messages left by people over the years and has become a symbol of resistance against the Mafia, and a place of memory.

Lisca Bianca, the boat that circumnavigated the world

If you like adventure novels, this story has all the ingredients. There are no pirates or treasure maps, just a ship and a travel by the sea.

 When you arrive to the port of La Cala you will immediately notice that there is a ship docked that stands out among all the others.

 It is not a yacht on which to drink champagne or show off by taking a selfie, it is Lisca Bianca, a sailing boat in which when you see you immediately feel the story of a dream came true, that of sailing around the world.

 A dream that Sergio and Licia Albeggiani, a Sicilian couple, turned into a reality. Once retired, they sold everything and set off to circumnavigate the world, from 1984 to 1987.

 Lisca Bianca, white lash in English, is a unique boat that Sergio and Licia had made built by a craftsman from Porticello, and which was first their home. They lived on board for some years before leaving for their adventure and where Licia continued to live for a short time after Sergio's death.

 Then, the boat was abandoned and Lisca Bianca was about to disappear forever. But chance wanted that one day in 2013 Francesco Belvisi and Elio Lo Cascio came across it, decided to restore it and bring it back to life.

 And from there a new dream was born. The two created the project "Lisca Bianca-Navigare nell'Inclusione", dedicated to carrying out community activities for young people in situations of social exclusion and promotion of maritime culture.

 Thanks to them Lisca Bianca has returned to sailing and since 2020 a plaque on the waterfront of La Cala remembers its first captain, Sergio Albeggiani.

Almonds to eat and to read

The almond (mandorla, in Italian) is one of the most characteristic Sicilian fruits, which can be enjoyed all year round, especially in sweets.

In summer, you can drink it in the refreshing almond milk and in granita; and in winter, you can find it in nougat and in the famous dry cookies, pasticcini alla mandorla. And, of course, in the frutta Martorana.

 In addition to eating it, in spring you can visit their wonderful flowers in the  festival dedicated to it in the Valley of the Temples, in Agrigento, the Sagra del Mandorlo in Fiore.

And if you are not yet in Sicily, you may want to know a little more about this fruit through the stories of two exceptional writers: 

The Almond Picker by Simonetta Agnello Hornby

La mennulara, the almond picker in Sicilian and the original title of the novel, is the protagonist of this story that you will read with anxiety and pleasure.

Set in a Sicilian village in the 60's on the day of the death of this mysterious woman, this will be an event that will trigger a surprising and unexpected story that will put the whole village in evidence. An unforgettable character and a novel to be enjoyed with the excitement of a good thriller.

The Almond Picker was the first novel written by Simonetta Agnello Hornby, a Sicilian lawyer living in London, and since its publication in 2002 it has immediately become a bestseller. Since then, Agnello Hornby has not stopped writing stories about Sicily, in which food and women are almost always the main characters.

Bitter Almonds. Recollections and Recipes from a Sicilian Girlhood by Mary Taylor Simeti and Maria Grammatico

Mary Taylor Simeti is a New Yorker by birth and a Sicilian by adoption. In this book Simeti tells the story of Maria Grammatico, the now famous pastry chef of Erice, a hilltop village in the province of Trapani.

Maria Grammatico, along with her sister, were sent to an orphanage, where she learned from the nuns the pastry-making trade and, in particular, many traditional sweets prepared with almonds. At the age of 22 Maria left the orphanage with the only thing she possessed: her skills and knowledge as a pastry chef.

How she came to open her famous pastry shop and some of her recipes is what Taylor Simeti tells in this book with a protagonist as remarkable as La mennulara.

Coffee and photography together in Palermo

Caffé Stagnitta is one of the oldest cafés in Palermo, in 2022 it celebrated a century of life. Although it was originally located in Piazza Venezia, it has been in its current location in Discesa dei Giudici, in the heart of the historic center, since 1931.

In addition to Coffee house, it is also a store and roastery, so they also roast and sell their own coffee blends. In fact, it is precisely a coffee blend to give it its name. "Ideal", was their first blend and Stagnitta the surname of the family that created it and has been running the roastery for four generations.

But the fact that they roast and sell coffee is not the most particular thing about this historic place. If you sit on the open-air terrace you might not understand why it is surrounded by black and white photographs.

Portraits of intellectuals such as Pier Paolo Pasolini, the writer Leonardo Sciascia and the painter Renatto Guttuso, both Sicilians, but also anonymous characters, such as the penetrating gaze of a Palermitan girl with her soccer ball or a bent old woman strolling with an ice cream.

What relationship can be between photography and coffee? The one that was between two people: Ignazio Stagnitta, son of the founder, and Letizia Battaglia, one of Italy's most important photographers. Although they divorced in the 1970s, their relationship is the reason why this café is also a place of Palermo's cultural memory.

Battaglia, who passed away last year, documented the most terrible years of mafia violence, the so-called "years of lead." Today, a memorial plaque commemorates her, her work and her love for Palermo.

Sferracavallo: nature, sea and sunsets

Sferracavallo is a small seaside neighborhood just over fifteen minutes from Palermo by car. But if you don't have one, don't worry, because you can also reach it by train.

Historically a fishermen's neighborhood, it is still today. You can see fishermen with their cane and also with their boat. In the small harbor you can see the boats moored, which go out to fish depending on the prey, at dawn or dusk. Also, you can find the shipyards repairing the boats and those that cannot be repaired are "parked" in the streets.

Many Palermitans come to spend Sunday in Sferracavallo, especially to eat fresh fish and seafood, as well as the famous homemade ice cream of La Delizia.

And, of course, they also come to take a dip in the sea. Less crowded and less prestigious than Mondello, Sferracavallo is a great choice for a swim, just with less comfort than in Mondello. Because except for the small beach of Barcarello, the accesses to the sea are rocky. So we advise you to bring appropriate slippers.

If Mondello excels in comfort, Sferracavallo clearly wins in landscape. From Punta Barcarello you can access the natural reserve of Capo Gallo, an astonishing natural area dominated by Monte Gallo and through which you can go trekking and make beautiful nature walks.

But it is surely the sunsets that make Sferracavallo more frequented. Watching the sun set into the sea with the Isola delle Femmine in the background is one of the most evocative images of this seaside township, so you are likely to find both professional and amateur photographers immortalizing the sunset, as well as couples enjoying the moment very romantically.

Celebrate Santa Rosalia Eating Babbaluci!

This year marks the 399th Festino of Santa Rosalia, the patron saint of Palermo, or in Sicilian u fistinu, to remember the moment when the Saint saved the city from the plague.

Much loved by the Palermitans, who affectionately call her the Santuzza, the city is full of votive altars dedicated to her and even some graffiti or other street art display that modernizes her image.

However Rosalia was not always the patron saint of Palermo, in fact it was this miracle that made her the sole and absolute patron saint, ousting all the others. Yes, “others” in plural. Because, strangely enough, Palermo used to have no more and no less than four saints, Agata, Cristina, Ninfa and Oliva, who can still be seen today in the four niches of the Quattro Canti.

The city celebrates its patron saint on the night of July 14th with an all-out celebration, which makes us wonder why they call it "Festino", which in Italian means “small feast”. Perhaps it is an affectionate name because the feast is by no means small!

The carriage that carries the Saint crosses the city from the Cathedral to the sea, making nine stops enlivened with music or small theatrical performances and ending in big fireworks until late into the night.

Throughout the day, in addition to the Santa, the other main protagonist is of course the food. Along with the traditional street food such as sfincione or pane con la milza, which can be found regularly, or calia e simenza, a preparation of chickpeas and pumpkin seeds, traditional of all Sicilian festivities, the most special food of the Festino is undoubtedly the babbaluci.

The babbaluci are snails cooked and seasoned with garlic, parsley, oil, salt and pepper. Palermitans love them and in the few remaining stores that make them there are long lines to buy them. Of course, there are other Palermitans who loathe them and others who challenge you to eat them only with the skill of your mouth and without using a toothpick... Do you want to try?

How to “preserve” your Sicilian trip - Paper Artists in Palermo

If one day you have the opportunity to do your shopping in any Palermo’s market, you will notice that in the paper in which they wrap your meat or vegetables, you almost always will find a nice detail: a drawing, a phrase, a thank you...

But inevitably after emptying the purchase, you throw it away. Instead, Carmela and Giulia thought they could give a much longer and creative second life to these wrappers that tell a part of the history of Palermo’s historic markets. And so, they created Edizione Precarie and decided to turn the paper used to wrap and protect food into notebooks and letter paper kits that can also preserve many other things, as your dreams, projects or your most unspeakable secrets.

A unique way of writing and “preserve” your travel in notebooks that hide between their pages so many stories, waiting to receive yours. Just as you don’t always find strawberries or pumpkins in the market, because each one has its own season, each notebook style is unique and diverse not only in size, but also in colors and even textures!

You can find notebooks in different styles, more fishy ones, carnivorous and sweeter ones, and even a collection of small notebooks with Sicilian riddles.

The space of Edizione Precarie hosts also works by other artists and designers and is additionally a place where from time to time there are workshops in graphic printing, hand stamping, embroidery ....

An artisanal project of design and graphics that was born ten years ago and that, like the markets themselves, is always in transformation.

As of the writing of this article, they are located at:

EDIZIONI PRECARIE
Via Alessandro Paternostro, 75 Palermo

You can also follow them on Instagram @edizioniprecarie

Mondello: beach, Art Nouveu architecture and some unsolved mysteries

Few cities are as fortunate as Palermo to have a sea like that of Mondello at such a short distance.

Every Palermitan has a little bit of Mondello in their childhood memories, and they will spend hours and hours comparing the water of Mondello to that of the Maldives, talking about its turquoise blue reflections and its fine white sand.

With this image anyone could think that a little more than a hundred years ago the Gulf of Mondello was home to a large mephitic swamp, until 1891 when the recovery began and also its territorial and urban transformation.

From a swampy terrain Mondello became the preferred summer resort of the elite, which can be seen in the architecture of the town in some art nouveau villas, but above all in the iconic Bathing Establishment of 1910.

Located on a vast platform on pylons submerged in water, the Charleston, as the Palermitans call it because of the restaurant that was inside, transports you to a world of elegance and relaxation.

But there is a much more unknown villa, which not only stands out for its architecture, but for a much more mysterious history.

It is Villa Caboto, a house that has been uninhabited for years and is known as the haunted villa, due to some strange occurrences inside: lights that turn on and off by themselves, open faucets, sound of footsteps...

If you don’t have much time to hunt ghosts, besides bathing, you can go windsurfing and of course try the local specialties based on fish, good pizzas and finish the day with a good ice cream.

The Infatuation - The Best Restaurants & Bars In Palermo

Our friend Linda Sarris published and top 20 list of restaurants in Palermo on the iconic The Infatuation, here’s the full list of The Best Restaurants & Bars In Palermo as of summer 2023.

1. Enoteca Picone

2. Corona Trattoria

3. Bocum Fuoco

4. Trattoria Piccolo Napoli

5. Le Angeliche

6. Fúnnaco

7. Osteria Mercede

8. Ozio Gastronomico

9. Moltivolti

10. Gagini

11. MEC Restaurant

12. Casa Stagnitta

13. I Segreti Del Chiostro

14. Pasticceria Cappello

15. Cappadonia Gelati

16. Botanico Bar

17. Dal Barone

18. Mak Mixology

19. Seven Rooftop Cocktail Bar

20. Nautoscopio Nauto

Rediscovering the sea of Palermo

Greeks called Palermo, Panormos, “all port” and if you want to discover firsthand why, the best way to do it is to walk along its promenade by the sea.

We stroll from one point to the other of the city, from the port of La Cala to the small port of Sant Erasmo, to enjoy as a vero palermitano a space that is being recovered for the city and the enjoyment of locals an foreigners.

La Cala

La Cala is the old port of Palermo, it has the shape of a “U” and it is nowadays a classic tourist harbor with fishing and sailing boats.

Walking along the pedestrian area you can admire the big mural that remembers Falcone and Borsellino and practically always you will find the sailors repairing their boats or ready to sail, fish vendors or other Palermitans trying to fish, to whom you can quietly watch if they have caught something sitting without any responsibility in one of the nearby bars.

Foro Italico

This part of the promenade is one of the most frequented by Palermitans for jogging or cycling, and when the sun goes down, you can find any kind of sport, from yoga to African dance and even cricket matches if you’re lucky!

If you are a calmer type, you also have your place. In the gardens next to the promenade, you can have an improvised picnic or take a nap under the palm trees. If the day is particularly windy, don’t miss the opportunity to fly kites.

If at any moment you are hungry or thirsty, a few meters away the drinks cart (try a refreshing orzata!) and the paninaro, the sandwich vendor, awaits you.

Sant’Erasmo

The days when Palermo turned its back on the sea seem to have come to an end with the rehabilitation of this part of the city.

The small Port of Sant’Erasmo has come back to life a couple of years ago. To celebrate it maybe the best thing to do is to toast with a good Sicilian wine in one of the nice restaurants around while enjoying the view of the sea; that sea that Palermitans could not enjoy for so many years.

What do we think about dry aging meat?

We were interviewed by carnivorestyle.com

IS DRY-AGED BEEF BETTER?

Dry-aging your beef makes the meat incredibly tender and rich in flavor, so the answer is yes - it tastes better.

Salvatore Agusta, co-founder of Palermo Street Food, adds that the process of dry-aging also intensifies the natural beefy taste; hence, the enhanced flavor of meat.

La Favorita: a park between oriental whims and the King's mistress

This green park is called Parco della Favorita, but more than a park it looks like a forest. You won't come across it if you walk through the city center, because Palermo's green lung is on the way to Mondello beach.

 Larger than New York's Central Park, it was created by King Ferdinand IV of Bourbon as a hunting ground in 1799, an activity of which he was very fond. So, in this park where today you can run, walk or hide from the heat with a picnic, in the Eighteenth century used to be full of pheasants and rabbits and hunts were organized for the King’s pleasure.

 In the park, in addition to hunting, the king had an extravagant residence built to live in with his wife, Maria Carolina of Austria, when they fled Naples in 1798.

 This is the Palazzina Cinese, a villa in oriental style, with its five floors, pagoda roof and portico supported by six marble columns, is striking both for its beauty and its eccentricity.

 This original Royal refuge can be visited, and its interior is as unusual as the external part, with its walls decorated with silk panels with Chinese motifs or trompe l'oeil frescoes. You can also discover the most intimate rooms, such as the bedrooms and even the king's bathroom, with a large marble bathtub. And of course, the curious dining room with its mathematical table, which allowed dishes to be brought up from the kitchens on the lower floor.

 Although many think that the name of the park, La Favorita, is because it was the "favorite" place of the king, in reality it seems that its origin is due to another kind of favorite “things”: women.

 t is believed that the “favorite” was the Duchess of Floridia and Partanna, Lucia Migliaccio, a Sicilian noblewoman who was also married. Even if it was love at first sight, obviously the relationship remained clandestine, but finally ended in marriage when both widowed.

The Strange History of the "Bad" Palermitan Women

Corso Vittorio Emanuele is the long avenue that divides Palermo in two and ends at a large stone gate, Porta Felice. Crossing it you will find the Foro Italico with its sea views.

But if instead of crossing it you look at the stairs right next to Porta Felice you can climb them, go through an iron gate and walk along what were originally the city walls.

You will be walking on the Mure delle Cattive. If you know any Italian, you'll know that “cattive” is the feminine plural of "cattiva" which means bad. So yes, you are on the "wall of bad women".

Don't think this is a typo, the sign hanging over the gate you've walked through says it quite clearly. So, if it's not a mistake, you're probably now wondering who these women are and what might have done to have earned that label.

Thieves, murderers, swindlers?

None of the above.

These women were just prisoners. Not of their family, not of a king, not of a jailer. They were prisoners of their pain, that is, they were widows.

Everything is due to a misunderstanding between the word captiva (captive, prisoner) and the word cattiva (bad).

In 1823 this promenade with a paved terrace was built on the walls to be able to take a walk overlooking the sea to enjoy a cooler breeze. This would have allowed those widows, who according to tradition should be dressed in black and mourning their loss to infinity, to walk more discreetly.

Another version of the story tells that what they really did was to let themselves be seen to show that they were available…

Today, after some years closed, you will not see widows walking around, but at least you can sit in the only bar to have a snack in the shade of the trees.

The historical market of Palermo that is also a work of art

In Palermo there are three historical markets, the Capo, Ballarò and the Vucciria, but only one of the three, besides being a market, is also a work of art.

The Vucciria is a painting by Renato Guttuso, and if you look closely, you will see it hanging in many stores in the city, as a poster, of course. The original is in the Palazzo Steri, former seat of the Inquisition and now the Rectorate of the University of Palermo.

Quite a change, huh? The Vucciria is as much an icon of the city as its market. Palermitans often repeat that Vucciria market is nothing like it used to be, so Guttuso’s painting is a good way to imagine what the market might have looked like almost half a century ago, when he painted it in 1974.

A place full of color and market stalls with their vendors shouting their fruits, vegetables, meat, fish... while customers and passersby navigate through the crowded streets.

One of the mysteries of the painting is to know for sure how many people really are there. It is said that every time you count them you will always find a new one hidden.

If you visit it at the Steri you won’t only see it, but also hear it. The exhibition integrates a sound system that makes you really feel that you are immersed in the atmosphere of the market, with its vitality and energy.

If after visiting the painting, you take a walk through the Vucciria market you will immediately identify the street that Guttuso painted.

And if you look back you will discover the place from where he did it: the balcony of the old trattoria Shangai, where he used to go for lunch, of which unfortunately only some remains of the red structure are left.

But don’t tell me that for a moment you don’t imagine he is still there, observing the daily life of his dear Vucciria.

Anti-Italian Hate Speech "Dumb W*ps*

Someone left a racist comment under our blog post about spleen sandwiches, using the pejorative racial slur against Southern Italians, “w*p.”

Our little company, Palermo Street Food, and this blog are loudly and proudly run by Southern Italians and we will not tolerate hate speech of any kind against any group of people.

Instead of simply deleting the comment (which of course we did), we’d also like to take this opportunity to contextualize the word “w*p” in the landscape of anti-Italian racism and discrimination.

“W*p” has historical significance as a racist term against Italian people in the United States, specifically people from the Southern Italian ethnic group; the Italian regions of Abruzzo, Molise, Campania, Puglia, Basilicata, Calabria and the two islands of Sicily and Sardegna.

“Wop. The word implies an illiterate Italian immigrant working as a day laborer. This word is a distortion of the Spanish word “guepo’ which means a tough, brave Sicilian. The Italians themselves now use the word ‘guappo’ in a derogatory sense to mean Sicilian. It is one of the most common derogatory designations of the Italian in the USA. This word is typical of the colloquial speech.”

— TYPES OF ETHNOPHOBISMS, THEIR ETYMOLOGY AND USAGE Mizetska V. Y., Zubov M. I.

Racist caricature of Italian people in the United States of America, 1911

There is some debate abut the etymology of the word “w*p",” did it come from the Italian word “guappo” or was it an acronym for “With Out Papers,” in the same way that the word “cop” was an acronym for for “Constable On Patrol?” As Ben Zimmer says in this Atlantic article:

The best guess from etymologists is that the source is a southern Italian dialectal word, guappo or guappu, meaning “dandy” or “swaggerer.” That, in turn, is likely from the Spanish word guapo meaning “handsome” or “bold,” imported to Sicily when the island was occupied by Spain. Sicilian immigrants to the United States brought the swaggering word with them. It “connoted arrogance, bluster, and maleficence entwined,” wrote the music journalist Nick Tosches in his 2001 book Where Dead Voices Gather, in a historical exploration of the Italian-flavored pop-music genre once known as “wop songs.” Here is how Tosches describes (with some literary embellishment) the way that guappo and its variants became wop on American shores:

It was these Sicilian words that were commonly used to describe the work-bosses who lured their greenhorn paesani into servitude in New York City in the early years of the twentieth century. In New York and other American seaports, the lowly labor of the Italian immigrants’ servitude—the dockside toil and offal-hauling that others shunned—came to be called … guappu work; and eventually the laborer himself, and not the boss, was known as guappu. The peasant immigrants’ tendency to clip the final vowels from standard Italian and Sicilian—as in paesan’ for paesano—rendered guappu as guapp’, which was pronounced, more or less, as wop.

Whatever the origin of the word, “w*p” came into use as a racial slur that functioned to other the southern Italian ethnic group in the USA. In 1882, the New York Times posted an article titled Our Future Citizens, writing:

“There has never been since New York was founded so low and ignorant a class among the immigrants who poured in here as the Southern Italians who have been crowding our docks during the past year.”

This was the social climate in which the word “w*p” became prevalent.

Sicilians were often at the nucleus of anti-Italian hate. For example, this NYTimes article for 2019 How Italians Became ‘White’ describes the trope of Sicilians as “rattlesnakes.”

“A scabrous Times editorial justified the lynching (of Italians) — and dehumanized the dead, with by-now-familiar racist stereotypes.

“These sneaking and cowardly Sicilians,” the editors wrote, “the descendants of bandits and assassins, who have transported to this country the lawless passions, the cutthroat practices … are to us a pest without mitigations. Our own rattlesnakes are as good citizens as they. Our own murderers are men of feeling and nobility compared to them.”

The editors concluded of the lynching that it would be difficult to find “one individual who would confess that privately he deplores it very much.”

To learn more about the history of anti-Italian racism in the USA, we strongly suggest this article How Italians Became ‘White.’

Climbing in Caltavuturo, in the Madonie Mountains

When Dominique Vivant Denon arrived in the Sicilian town of Caltavuturo in 1778, his first thought was
“big and sublime.” As he wrote, Caltavuturo is a place of “steep mountains, hanging rocks, glimpses of the sea, old castles as in fairy tales.”

Caltavuturno is perhaps the best spot for rock climbing in Sicily. It is one of only a handful of places in Sicily where it is possible to climb in the summer with mild temperature.

In Caltavuturo, if you love breathtaking Sicilian landscapes and climbing, you will adore the imposing cliffs that compose the landscape.

The cliffs were summited between 2005 and 2006 by Rosario Cammara with the help of 5 members of Association “Cabeci Climbing, ” and operation co-financed, although in a modest way, by public institutions: the city hall of Caltavuturo and the “Ente Parco delle Madonie”.

The orientation to North of the cliffs, the height of about 700 meters, the location, the surroundings, the quality of rock, allow for a different climbing that requires technique and physical strength in the fingers.

All of these elements make a unique experience also because it is one of few places in Sicily where it is possible to climb in the summer with mild temperature.

Caltavuturo is near the sea of Cefalù, full of trekking adventure paths and path by bike with dedicated services.

How to get to Caltavuturo?
For who is arriving from Catania, highway exit: Tremonzelli.

For who is arriving from Messina/Palermo, highway exit: Scillato.

Climbing takes a lot of physical effort to reach the top of the mountain, but at the end, the effort will disappear because of the wonderful view in front of you.

It is compulsory wear a helmet. It is forbidden to climb:
- When the weather conditions are not good;
- In presence of animals grazing in the slope up the cliff.

For more information, send a mail to tom.caltavuturo@gmail.com.

After the nice climbing, you might want to go to go to Sclafani Bagni, only 10kms distance from Caltavuturo.

Sclafani is a town on a rock, known for the thermal bath. There is a place where it is possible to take a bath in a warm water, while admiring the wonderful panorama with mountains.

Inside the small hot spring you will find the mud and use it to cover the body with. It has good benefits for your skin.