SICILIAN FEAST DAY RAGOUT

(Ragù Siciliano delle Feste)

Serves 12 to 14

1 farsumagru, uncooked

125 g/4 oz stale white breadcrumbs

125 ml/4 fl oz milk

450 g/1 lb minced beef

1 egg

25 g/1 oz grated pecorino or caciocavallo cheese

2 cloves garlic, minced fine

1 tablespoon minced parsley

Salt and freshly ground black pepper skinned and chopped

2 bay leaves

1 small marrow bone

225 g/8 oz blanched baby peas

12 fresh Sicilian pork sausage links

6 tablespoons olive oil

900 g/2 lb potatoes, peeled and cut in large pieces

1 large onion, minced

2 tablespoons tomato extract or 3 tablespoons tomato purée

450 ml/2 fl oz red wine

450 ml/16 fl oz plain tomato sauce

450 g/1 lb ripe tomatoes,

1.5-1.75 kg/3-3½ lb maccheroni (a hollow spaghetti slightly larger than bucatini)

Prepare the farsumagru as the recipe directs.

Soak the breadcrumbs in the milk for 10 minutes. Squeeze out the excess liquid, then blend thoroughly with the ground meat, egg, cheese, garlic, parsley, and a little salt and pepper. Shape into small patties.

Poke holes in the sausage links with a fork to let the excess fat escape, then brown them in 2 tablespoons olive oil. Remove the sausages from the pan, and in the fat brown the potatoes on all sides. Remove the potatoes and brown first the farsumagru, turning to colour it on all sides, and then the beef patties.

In a very large flameproof casserole, sauté the onion in 4 tablespoons olive oil until soft. Add the tomato extract, dissolving it in the wine, tomato sauce, tomatoes, and the bay leaves. Place the farsumagru in the middle of the casserole and fit the sausages, marrow bone, and meat patties around it. Cover pan and simmer over low heat for 60 minutes.

Add the potatoes (at this point the sausages and the patties will be cooked, and if you have problems of space you can take them out and put the potatoes in their place) and cook for another 20 to 30 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. Add the peas for the last 10 minutes. Correct the salt and add some black pepper.

Meanwhile cook the pasta in abundant boiling salted water until al dente. Drain, place in a large bowl, and ladle some of the sauce from the ragù over it. Serve at once.

Remove the farsumagru, let it cool for 20 minutes while you are eating your pasta, cut off all the string binding it, and place it on a platter. Slice it, arranging it so that the filling shows in all its glory, surround it with a row of sausages, a row of patties, and a row of potatoes. Spoon the remaining sauce over all. This really is a magnificent dish, and not the least of its virtues is that you won’t want to look at meat again until Easter! It took fourteen of us to polish it off, and it was serious eating!

Those who had large pieces of meat or a farsumagru in their ragù would fish them out and carve them up for the second course, to be followed by slices of blood sausage and wedges of raw sweet fennel to cut the grease and cleanse the mouth. Those who had none were happy nonetheless, for everyone, rich or poor, washed his pasta down with lots of wine, told a great many ribald jokes, and greeted with loud groans and cries of delight the arrival of dessert.

Carnival was and still is celebrated with a wide variety of sweets. By the end of January marzipan pigs wearing bowler hats or dunce caps appear in the windows of Palermo’s pastry shops, and the bakeries display trays filled with sugar-dusted ribbons of fried dough and pyramids of tiny round fritters dripping with honey or caramelised sugar. These are called pignoccata, from pigna or pine cone, which they vaguely resemble and which is one of Western civilisation’s most ancient fertility symbols.