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If there is one book that belongs on the shelf of food lovers, it is Sicilian Food by Mary Taylor Simeti. This book is a classic. The definitive work on Sicilian cooking, full of authentic, hard-to-find recipes gleaned from the author’s friends, family and acquaintances on the island itself.

The first book on Sicilian cooking to be published in English by a major publisher, Sicilian Food offers a wealth of historical and anthropological information about the evolution of this unique and sophisticated cuisine. Each of the more than 100 recipes, for the most part simple and easily replicable, is placed in the context of its historical origin and of its place in the seasonal and liturgical calendars still so important in governing the Sicilian table.

Mary Taylor Simeti taught herself about Sicilian food first hand, and with a passion. She haunted former convents and palaces where Palermo’s libraries have been maintained, tested each ancient recipe herself and updated the methods.

“This is a delightful mix of culinary and social history, with mouth-watering Sicilian recipes included as an added bonus. [Simeti’s] wit and pleasing style make her observations on food, eating habits, and culture as addictive as some of the dishes she describes.”
– Library Journal.

About the Author

Mary Taylor Simeti was born and grew up in New York City. After graduating from Harvard, she went to Sicily to work as a community development volunteer. What was intended to be a one- or two-year interlude turned out to be a life: in 1964 she married Antonio Simeti, an agricultural economist.

Simeti and her husband run an organic farm near Palermo. She is also the author of On Persephone’s, Island: A Sicilian Journal (Knopf, 1986), and co-author of Bitter Almonds (Morrow 1994), the memoir of a pastry chef who learned her trade in a convent orphanage. Her most recent book in English is Travels with a Medieval Queen (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2001). Simeti has written several books in Italian, and travel and food articles for various American and British publications: She was a regular contributor to the Sunday travel section of the New York Times and to its Sophisticated Traveler supplement, and now contributes articles to the Arts and Leisure supplement of the Financial Times.