Pomp and Sustenance - Sicilian Food: Twenty-Five Centuries of Sicilian Food by M. Simeti

  • Fava bean soup (Maccu) (page 16)

    from Sicilian Food: Recipes from Italy's Abundant Isle Sicilian Food by Mary Taylor Simeti

    • Categories: Soups; Italian; Vegetarian; Vegan
    • Ingredients: dried fava beans; wild fennel
    show

  • Show all Recipes...

Notes about this book

  • SULibraries on October 20, 2025

    CJ 394.109458 S589p (LOU)

  • mama_c on November 11, 2022

    Thank you robm. I just purchased this book again today at a thrift shop, even though it looked very familiar! I bring my phone and look up ISBNs while I'm shopping, to avoid purchasing duplicates, but this ISBN was not found in the index (not by author or title either). My second copy is: 9780394568508. It's a terrific history and enjoyable read.

  • robm on June 03, 2021

    mama_c is correct: this wonderful book was reissued under the title "Sicilian Food." It's otherwise the same book, it seems. This is an invaluable addition to the library of anyone interested in seeing how foods and cooking methods have come down to us from antiquity and medieval times. Most people, I dare say, have no idea just how old some of the dishes we eat today really are. Simeti does a wonderful job tracing and describing contemporary recipes as far back as the days of ancient Greece and Rome. She does sometime take a somewhat authoritarian tone, like some other well-known cookbook authors ("Do it exactly the way I say or don't bother even trying this.") But her history and research are impressive and illuminating. Some of her recipes are more "modern." Pasta came to be known in Italy as much as 1000 years ago, and tomatoes and New World ingredients nearly 500 years ago. So all of these foods have long pedigrees!

  • mama_c on June 13, 2020

    I purchased this on Amazon in May 2020; I think a newer edition, ISBN 978-1-63561-851-8

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  • ISBN 10 0880016108
  • ISBN 13 9780880016100
  • Published Feb 15 2019
  • Format Hardcover
  • Page Count 352
  • Language English
  • Countries United States
  • Publisher Ecco
  • Imprint ECCO Press,U.S.

Publishers Text

This gem is more than just a cookbook. Walk through history with Pomp and Sustenance author Mary Taylor Simeti as she shares the secrets and eccentricities of Sicilian cuisine. Straddling the East and West, Christian and Muslim, land and sea, this Mediterranean island is a place of unique convergence. Nowhere is cultural convergence more evident than in Sicily's regional culinary traditions and food culture. Simeti narrates this centuries-long journey, with wit and humor, making this historical cookbook a joy to own and use.

More than just history, Pomp and Sustenance is filled with wonderful recipes. Impressive in their style, scope, and authenticity. There are chapters dedicated to street food, convent food, and the peasant's food, giving the reader a taste of the diversity of ingredients and cooking methods found on the Island. Sure to be a favorite for anyone who truly savors Sicilian food, culture, and history.