Harvests from the great, silent fields of sun-bronzed wheat result in more bread than pasta for la tavola siciliana, yet there is a trio of pasta dishes that is cooked throughout the island. One of them dresses pasta in eggplant and tomatoes perfumed with wild mint and basil, the whole dusted with grated, salted ewe’s milk ricotta. Called often pasta alla Norma in celebration of Catanian son Vincenzo Bellini it can be a gorgeous dish. Then there is pasta chi vrocculi arriminati—dialect for a dish that calls for a paste of cauliflower and salt anchovies studded with raisins and pine nuts. Although it is luscious, it cannot compete with the glories of the island’s pasta con le sarde. A dish full of extravagant Arab timbres, it employs fresh, sweet sardines, salt anchovies, wild fennel, and a splash of saffroned tomato. One presents the pasta cool, as though heat would be violence against its sensuousness. Wild fennel grows abundantly on the lower shanks of Sicily’s mountains and, too, along the craggy paths of some of her islands. I used to collect wild fennel along the banks of the Sacramento River and I’ve heard tell of great clumps of its yellow lace heads bobbing along country roads in America’s Northeast. Now I find it a few kilometers from our home in thickets against the pasture fences along the Via Cassia on the road to Rome. Though the scent and the savor of cultivated fennel is sweeter, it behaves well in collaboration with these other elements and yields a still-sumptuous dish.

　　

Ingredients

serves 6

　　6 to 8 stalks wild fennel or the fronds and stalks from 1 large head of fresh fennel

　　2 tablespoons coarse sea salt

　　2/3 cup pine nuts

　　1/4 teaspoon saffron threads

　　1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons dry white wine

　　1/4 cup canned tomato puree

　　4 ounces anchovies, preserved under salt

　　1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil

　　1 large yellow onion, peeled and minced

　　16 ounces fresh sardines, filleted, heads and tails removed

　　1/2 cup dark raisins, plumped in warm moscato or other ambered, sweet wine

　　16 ounces bucatini or other thick, string pasta

　　1/3 cup fine, freshly made bread crumbs, browned in 2 tablespoons olive oil

　　

Step 1

Coarsely chop the stalks of wild fennel with their flowers or the fronds and stalks of cultivated fennel. Place in a large saucepan, add 5 quarts of cold water, 1 tablespoon of the coarse sea salt, and bring to a simmer, poaching the fennel until the stalks are tender. Drain the fennel, reserving its cooking liquors and press it against the side of the pot to express all its liquid. Finely mince the poached fennel and set it aside.

　　

Step 2

In a small sauté pan over a medium flame, pan-roast the pine nuts until quite brown and set aside. In a small sauté pan, pan-roast the saffron threads for 1 minute over a low flame. Add the 2 tablespoons of white wine, dissolving the threads in it and then mixing the saffroned wine with the remaining wine and the tomato puree. Rinse the anchovies of their salt, remove their heads and bones, and lightly dry them on absorbent paper towels, finally crushing them gently with a fork.

　　

Step 3

In a large sauté pan, heat the olive oil and lightly sauté the onion. Add the minced fennel and sauté for 1 minute. Add the crushed anchovies and the sardine fillets, rolling the fish about in the oil with the aromatics for 1/2 minute before adding the plumped raisins and their juices, 1/2 cup of the pine nuts, and the saffron/tomato mixture. Stir, amalgamating the elements and reducing the liquids so that a thick sauce results.

　　

Step 4

Turn the sauce out into a bowl, permitting it to cool and its perfumes and flavors to rest and intensify. Never refrigerate the sauce.

　　

Step 5

Just before serving, cook the pasta to al dente in the reserved fennel-poaching water, adding 1 additional tablespoon of coarse sea salt. Drain the pasta, leaving it somewhat wet, and dress the hot pasta with the sauce, carefully coating each strand.

　　

Step 6

Serve the pasta in shallow bowls, strewing it with the remaining pine nuts and a dusting of bread crumbs. In high summer, we might sip iced moscato with the pasta, but in cooler weather, a rough, tannic red seems right.

　　A Taste of Southern Italy