Caponata under attack, threats by stock cubes

The caponata, for those who don’t remember, is a divine dish based on a sweet and sour sauce made of vinegar, olive oil and sugar. The more popular is the one with aubergines/eggplants, but there are also versions with carrots, green apples (pic above) and artichokes which I personally tried.

Responsible for this attack on the heart of Sicilian food is an advert on national television in which two women that are supposed to be from Palermo (one has a fake accent though) prepare the caponata using stock cubes for broth. The stock is produced by a well-known Italian company which I obviously won’t name. So… the spontaneous question that come to our minds simply is: Why? What stock cubes has to do with such a unique dish? 

These questions so far have got no answers, apart from the unsuccessful attempt that the company made to explain that they only wanted to propose a new version of our dish. With stock cubes? Seriously? Well done marketing department!!!

Sicilians are unique people. We can bear to live with corruption, organised crime, horrible traffic, inefficient burocracy and dirty streets, but nobody can touch our food. Nobody! 

And infact 48 hours after the regrettable tv advert, people started to rise up with rage and indignation in defense of this traditional dish, creating Facebook pages with titles like “Don’t profane the Sicilian caponata!” and ashtag like #savecaponata, swearing that they would start boycotting the product. Some articles I read were making fun of the company, some others were asking it to remove the advert from been broadcasted again.

Now… on an even more serious note that this… I just want to add my thought.
There are lots of Sicilian people (professional chefs, food lovers and bloggers like me) that every single day bust their ass to preserve our recipes and our tradition over the years, just like our mothers and grandmothers taught us, and in 2 minutes of bad publicity everything falls apart because these guys decided that want to put some stock in the caponata? What the hell were they thinking? Maybe tomorrow some other genius wakes up and says that have a new version of the Sicilian Cassata made of peanut butter and Philadelphia cheese?

I am sorry but this is wrong. I have been telling it for ages… you don’t mess up with Sicilian food or… you gonna be in trouble. 

Spread the word.