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THE FOODS
The culture of fine dining may have been conceived in Sicily when Archestratus, a
Greek poet born at Gela in the 4th century B.C., wrote Gastronomia as an ode to
the pleasures of the Sicilian table. Outsiders before and since have sung the
praises of the bountiful seas and fertile volcanic soils of this island
crossroads of the Mediterranean.
The Greeks, among their other contributions to Sicilian cooking, introduced
whole grain and refined flours for flatbreads that were forerunners to focaccia.
They planted the Malvasia and Moscato vines that are still prominent today. They
also seem to have used the snows of Mount Etna to make ices based on fruits and
honey.
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THE WINES
Contrasts are not the least of those things in which Sicily abounds. So perhaps it is not surprising that this ancient island boasts one of Italy's most progressive wine industries or that a region noted chiefly in the past for strong and often sweet amber Marsala and Moscato has switched the emphasis toward lighter, fruitier winesÒmainly white but also red.
Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean, has more vineyards than any other Italian region. Yet, with the emphasis shifting from quantity to quality, wine production has diminished recently to slightly less than that of Veneto.
A major share of the DOC is represented by Marsala, a wine originated by English merchant traders two centuries ago. Marsala remains Sicily's proudest wine despite the not so distant era of degradation when it was used mainly for cooking or flavored with various syrups and sweeteners. Recently it has enjoyed a comeback among connoisseurs, who favor the dry Marsala Vergine and Superiore Riserva with the warmly complex flavors that rank them with the finest fortified wines of Europe.
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