Sandra Benjamin

A good overview of the history of Sicily but I unfortunately found the style a little flat, so it reminded me of a textbook rather than a book written for educated adults interested in the history of Sicily. That said, I feel I now have a good overview of the long (and complex) history of this beautiful island, and it helped put in place a number of loose pieces I had regarding Sicilian history--for example, the expulsion of the Jews in 1494; I hadn't realised that in 1494 King Ferdinand (of Spain) was also King of Sicily. As co-sponsor/founder of the Inquisition together with his devout wife Isabella of Castile (she who legendarily gave her jewels to Columbus to finance his expedition to the New World) and King of Sicily, Sicily also fell victim to many of the Inquisition's terrors and prejudices. The expulsion of the Jews from Sicily, despite the protests of many Sicilian Christians, robbed Sicily of much of its educated middle class. Readers will discover many such building blocks in Sicily's history even if they thought they knew nothing of Sicilian history before opening the first chapter--Odysseus, the Punic Wars, Richard the Lion-Heart, barbary pirates, Octavian Augustus, Oscar Wilde, not to mention being the locale of two Shakespearean plays (do you know which ones?).

A very strong recommendation I would make to readers is to read this book concurrent with Mary Taylor Simeti's excellent book covering "twenty-five years of Sicilian Food" entitled Pomp and Sustenance. The chapters parallel one another beautifully and Ms. Simeti's colourful and exuberant writing style helps enliven the history as she also covers her subject chronologically. So read the chapters on the Greek and Roman period in the Benjamin history, then read the related chapters in the Simeti volume. Voila! The paragraphs on agriculture come to life in classic Sicilian recipes still being prepared today. There's not much on culinary traditions introduced by the Vandals and Goths, but the appearance of the Muslim Period in Sicilian history (800s-roughly 1000) meant the introduction of sugar cane, for one, embellished with spices, pistachios and dates, to create many Sicilian desserts with "an Arab imprint, and several that even bear Arab names." This is a reading combination where 1 1=3. Amongst other great additions to world cuisine was tuna. The Sicilians had always been blessed with excellent tuna fishing grounds but it was the Arabs who taught them how to catch them collectively, turning tuna into one of the world's great staples. (And it was a Sicilian who first thought of canning tuna in oil.)

Ms. Benjamin notes in her appendix that most of her sources were in Italian, which explains the rather short suggestions for further reading in English, which is unfortunate, as I consider a book's bibliography one of its riches and often use it as a 'next steps' guide. That said, the few she names are all excellent--Abulafia on Frederick II; John Norwich on the Normans in Sicily, etc.

A good book to get in Kindle format to take with you if you're travelling to or in Sicily, with a very good Index...but don't forget to dip into Simeti's armchair cookbook if you're looking for a more grounded taste of Sicily.… (meer)