CHRISTMAS IN MARSALA: THE HOLIDAYS AT HOUSE FERRACANE

Spoiler: The following article may make your mouth water, so if you are on a diet, please refrain from reading.

The kitchen and cellar of the Ferracane house are very busy in December. While in the kitchen, mamma Rosa cooks and prepares the countless dishes for the Christmas holidays, Fabio goes to the cellar, checks how the latest vintage is going and chooses the bottles to open during the holidays . Christmas in Marsala is celebrated with dinner on the 24th and with the (very long!) lunch on Christmas day. Holidays in the Ferracane house mean being together happily, with mamma cooking for an army and Fabio taking out one bottle after another.

A large table is set up with the whole family gathered for the occasion and the wine from previous years is drunk, to see its evolution, but also to have the opinion of other family members.
It's a good opportunity for Fabio to see how they're refining the Catarratto, Grillo, Nero d'Avola or Merlot, and to get some feedback from his family. For example, Massimo, Fabio's brother, and Antonino, his father, are the ones who say what they think, without too many frills. Then there are Fabio's sister and his brother-in-law who are die-hard fans, for whom all the wines are excellent.

WHAT DO WE EAT FOR CHRISTMAS IN MARSALA?

The classic Christmas lunch begins with an endless array of appetizers: from parmigiana to baked courgettes, from mushrooms and stuffed tomatoes to breadcrumbs with peppers, trays of bruschetta with crumbled Easter sausage and soft cheese, palmito salad, caponata and the classic qualeddu.

Perhaps not everyone knows what mollicata, pasqualora sausage, palmito and qualeddu are. Mollicata with peppers is a dish from Puglia and Sicily, which is eaten as an appetizer or side dish. Pasqualora sausage is a pork sausage to which black pepper, chili pepper, white wine and wild fennel seeds are added. For its goodness and long tradition it has been added to the list of traditional Italian agri-food products (PAT). Finally, palmito, which is nothing other than the tender heart of the palm, which is filleted and served with pickles.

Qualeddu is a wild herb, a wild plant that grows in the Trapani area. Papa Antonino goes to pick it between the rows of vines. It is boiled for a long time, then cooled and fried and served with dried tomatoes. Fabio is crazy about it!

As a first course, we eat agnolotti in broth, while for the second course, Mamma Rosa prepares lacerto (beef shoulder, the so-called “false fillet”) baked with potatoes, also accompanied by salad from the garden near the house.

What sweets do they eat at Christmas in Marsala ? At the end of lunch there must be room for sweets, obviously in the plural. There are cannoli and cassata (even if few people in the family like it) and then the Cappiddruzzi marsalesi. Cappidruzzi are a sweet specialty of Marsala, a sort of ravioli filled with ricotta, obviously sheep's ricotta, which are fried. No, no pandoro and panettone on Christmas day, which are usually eaten on the night of the 24th.

In my family, the New Year's Eve tradition is millefoglie: don't be fooled, it's not a dessert here in Marsala! This is the name of the classic Sicilian lasagna with meat sauce, with peas, beef and sausage.

Fabio and his family wish you all happy holidays!