Street food: Palermo is n° 5 in Forbes’ top 10 cities worldwide

Published by thesiciliancuisineblog at giugno 15, 2014

Tags

Few weeks ago the famous magazine Forbes published a chart of the World’s top 10 cities for Street Food and look who is in their fifth place? Obviously Palermo, the capital of Sicily and the undisputed reign of the most delicious and unique street food of all times.

Unfortunately whoever wrote that bit on my city left out the renowned and, together with pane e panelle, most popular street food of Palermo: the spleen sandwich or… as we like to call it in Sicilian, “u pane ca’ meusa” (pic on the left).

It’s a lovely pagnotta (rounded bread) stuffed with pieces of fried cow spleen, lungs and other organs like windpipe. It is always served with a slice of lemon and you can have it either “schietto o maritato” which literally means single or married. In other words… plain or with cheese on top… usually caciocavallo or also fresh ricotta.

If you ask any person born in Palermo, they will tell you that these are the two most defining street food of Palermo, followed by all the rest (frittola, sfincione, potato croquettes, octopus salads, ect…)
Not trying the spleen sandwich in Palermo, when you look for street food, it’s like not visiting the Colosseum when you go to Rome in search of Roman remainings. So… do believe in what Forbes said about Palermo being n. 1 city for Street Food in Europe and n. 5 in the world, but for more details about the food… just check with a local first! ;-))

If you want to have a look at the original piece, clic here.