PASTA WITH SWORDFISH

(Pasta con Pescespada)

Serves 6

2 garlic cloves

125 ml/4 fl oz olive oil

4 large, very ripe tomatoes, skinned and chopped

Large bunch fresh mint, leaves chopped, plus a few whole sprigs

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

350 g/12 oz swordfish, skinned, boned, and diced

125 ml/4 fl oz water

675 g/1½ lb bucatini (a thick, hollow spaghetti)

125 g/4 oz mozzarella, diced

Sauté the whole garlic cloves in the olive oil until they are pale golden. Add the tomatoes, some of the chopped mint, and salt and pepper, and simmer for 5 minutes.

Remove the garlic cloves, then add the diced swordfish and the water. Simmer for about 15 to 20 minutes over a low heat.

In the meantime, cook the pasta in abundant salted water, drain it well, and put it in a large serving dish. Add the fish sauce, the mozzarella, and the remaining mint leaves, mixing well so that the mozzarella melts in the heat of the pasta (you have to move fast!). Garnish with a few sprigs of mint and serve immediately.

Fish and wheat were by no means the only Sicilian fare that the Greek world appreciated. Cheeses imported from Sicily were held in such high esteem that even the dogs of Athens craved them, as Aristophanes testifies:

— What else could be the matter? That grabby dog Chowhound, of course! Jumped into the pantry, clamped onto a rich Sicilian cheese and gulped the whole thing down!

Aristophanes, The Wasps, fifth century B.C.

It is safe to assume that Aristophanes was talking about cheeses made from Sheep’s milk, for sheep predominated in Sicily then as now. Normally the herdsmen who raise both sheep and goats do not process the milk separately, but mix it altogether and heat and curdle it exactly as the giant Polyphemus did:

…A practised job he made of it, giving each ewe her suckling; thickened his milk, then, into curds and whey, sieved out the curds to drip in withy baskets, and poured the whey to stand in bowls cooling until he drank it for his supper.

Homer, The Odyssey, ninth century B.C.

The principal sheep cheese of Sicily is a large pale-yellow drum about 20 cm/8 inches high and 25 cm/10 inches in diameter, its rind patterned with the weave of the rush baskets in which it is moulded. If made for immediate consumption it is either unsalted, in which case it is known as tuma, or given a light salting, which sharpens its flavour slightly and earns it the name of primosale. In either case, it has an oily, elastic texture that never crumbles, and it melts quickly and smoothly. If it is heavily salted and aged until it is suitable for grating, it is known as pecorino or canestrato and acquires a taste similar to that of a pecorino romano.

Tuma and primosale are quite bland in taste but with a slight whiff of the stable, a suggestion of gaminess that is much more subtle than in a chèvre, for example. Their taste also varies from month to month, according to what the sheep are finding in their pastures. Winter and spring cheeses are far better than those produced in the summer. Sometimes they are seasoned by stirring in whole peppercorns, and although I have never had the good fortune to taste or even see such a thing, my cleaning woman once mentioned that her father, a retired shepherd from the Madonie Mountains, had recently ordered a cheese prepared for him “the way he likes it”, spiced with coriander seeds. I don’t know of any cheeses on the British market that are equivalent in taste, but as a last resort in cooked dishes I would substitute a good mozzarella.

The shepherds add more milk to the whey that remains from the first round of cheese making, and bring it to a boil again to produce ricotta. (Ricotta is also made from cow’s milk, but this is considered an inferior version. I have a hand-lettered sign from an old grocery shop advertising “Ricotta from pure sheep!”) Fresh ricotta is a very perishable cheese that will not keep in the summer heat unless it is reduced by heavy salting or baking into a small, hard loaf; such must have been the ricotta that was exported to classical Greece. Salted or baked ricotta is also grated onto Sicilian pasta dishes made in summertime with fresh, sun-ripened tomatoes, including that epitome of simplicity and subtlety that is pasta con le melanzane. This recipe, which in Catania is known as pasta alla Norma, in honour of a masterpiece by one of the more famous native sons, the composer Vincenzo Bellini, looks rather undistinguished on paper. But when the various ingredients—the tomatoes, the aubergines, the oil, the basil, and the salted ricotta—are at their best, their respective flavours combine into one of the world’s truly sublime pasta dishes.