Sicilian Vegetables and their traditional names

In Sicily, when we talk about the products of the earth, besides being unique and sometimes unobtainable in other parts of the world, they also have very particular names and that obviously vary even within Sicily itself. When it comes to Sicilian vegetables, Sicily does not fear comparisons: for centuries it has been producing veggies with genuine flavours, real excellences, unique in taste and names! Some of the names used in Sicily for the vegetables, may sound slightly strange to those born outside the borders of the island. Let’s say you are visiting your distant cousins in Sicily, finally found thanks to our facebook group, and on a beautiful summer day you are offered for lunch a nice plate of pasta with “tenerumi”. You look up the translation in your portable Italian dictionary and… the word doesn’t exist!
Pasta con i tenerumi: are we still talking about Sicilian Vegetables?
There is no need to panic, any non-Sicilian person would probably react strangely to the question, without understanding what recipe we are talking about! The “tenerumi” or also knowns as “taddi” are the shoots and tender leaves of the long zucchini plant. The “tenerumi” are typically Sicilian and it is very difficult to find them in the rest of Italy.
But let’s explore some other varieties of Sicilian vegetables and see if you recognize any of them! If we ask you your preference when between “sinapa” the “purranei” and “nivia”, for example, what do you think of? They are respectively the wild chicory, the spiny chicory and the endive!
The “cucuzza i sett’anni” (the seven years old cucuzza), instead identifies the spiny zucchini. As a consequence, it is easy to understand that the term “cucuzza” means pumpkin or, more typically, long zucchini. This last term is surely one of the most known among the typical Sicilian ones. Then we have “cacoccioli” or “cacuociolli“, used by Sicilians to refer to artichoke, as well as “pipi” to refer to peppers. Both of them are super delicious when stuffed “Sicilian Style”!
When we get to broccoli, the situation gets slightly complicated, where we have different varieties such as vrocculi and sparacelli. You will say, easy, broccoli are vruoccoli, very easy, the sound is practically the same: nothing could be more wrong! The “vruoccoli” identify cauliflowers, while the “sparacelli” identify what the rest of the world calls broccoli. Confusing no? So when they ask you if you want a nice pasta with “vruoccoli arriminati”, or beautiful “vruoccoli in pastella” you know to expect cauliflower. Over the years, given the similarity between the two words, in Sicily when this vegetable is mentioned using the Italian word “broccoli”, it is always referred to as cauliflower.
There are also some Sicilian vegetables that are easier to recognize thanks to their similarity with the Italian language, such as “mulinciani” (melanzane – eggplants), “lattuca” (lattuga – lettuce), “citrola” (cetrioli – cucumbers) or “sparici” (asparagi – asparagus). Surely we have forgotten some famous vegetables, but we want to close our article with one of the most beloved vegetables in Sicily, tasty both fried in batter, baked in the oven or boiled with lemon, and the undisputed protagonist of lunches and dinners during the day of the Immaculate Conception! We are talking about “carduni” or cartoons!
You don’t know what cardoons are? Go read our article now then for more information!
I love this. My Nona was from San Biagio. She always spoke Sicilian. This is how I learned to speak.
love all your Sicilian vegetable and their meaning
[…] have already devoted an article to Sicilian vegetables and their traditional names. And, in fact, when it comes to vegetables and greens, Sicily offers so many ways to dive into the […]