Sicily - part one

I have long been a fan of Garibaldi biscuits with currents, known by generations of schoolchildren as ‘squashed fly biscuits’. They nicely accompany my 4 pm tea with the CBC radio news. 

In 1860 Giuseppe Garibaldi landed on Sicily and went on to conquer the island. 

This is known as the Expedition of the Thousand, a major step towards Italian unification. A few years before Garibaldi had been much fêted during a visit to England. And so, in 1861, the British company Peek Freans named their new biscuits after the famous Italian patriot.

Nibbling my biscuits one teatime last summer it came to mind that perhaps I might, so to speak, pay my respects to the general. And, in late October, I did at one of the innumerable Garibaldi statues (not to mention hundreds of streets, theatres, etc., etc.) to be found in Italy. This statue is in Trapani on Sicily.

Preparing for my trip I found myself encountering other kitchen cupboard reminders of Sicily. At my local supermarket sea salt with an eye-catching windmill ...

… one I later photographed at Saline de Mozia on Sicily’s east coast …

… along with the salt pans from which came my supermarket salt.

At Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market I found olive oil …

… produced not far from where in October I was to dip my boots in the Mediterranean …

… and then drizzle olive oil on my pizza in Mazara del Vallo.

And something else that encouraged my return to Sicily, Enzo Sellerio’s extraordinary photographs. 

A battered copy of his collection is in my library. And I was so pleased that, on this most recent trip, I found a picture of Sellerio at work, part of a current Palermo-wide exhibition of his work.

There doesn't seem to be a website devoted to Sellerio's output, but you can see and click on some of his photos here:

https://www.artnet.com/artists/enzo-sellerio/

Sellerio’s Rolleiflex and Leica shots in the 1950s and 60s evoke a far different Sicily, but I hope my amateur efforts might offer a 2025 hint.