Veal guts were caught in my teeth.
Coming back from a day trip up the hill to Monreale, I got off the bus at Piazza Indipendenza and started walking home to my B&B. Off on a low side road, I saw smoke and smelled grilling meat. “Milza“? (Sicilian, cooked organ meats.) No. It was skewered veal intestines and they smelled great.
The guy had a little cart on the sidewalk in a torn up construction zone. NOT the kind of place any germophobe would eat! No running water, but rather a gallon bucket with water that had oil floating on top.
The bowels had been zig-zag plucked onto the metal skewers and partly precooked. I ordered one: “Budello… Stiglione”
The grill was smoking hot… A good sign.
The “chef” cooked the skewered gut until it was hot through, then skimmed it off the metal rod onto a cutting board that’s been working all afternoon. He motioned me to stand aside while he cut the fatty gut into bite-sized chunks, splurting grease as he did so. He swept them with his knife onto a plastic plate, added a wedge of lemon, then showed me the tub of salt that at least a hundred hands have visited just today.
I wagered the risks, paid my 1.50 euro, then started eating with my post-public-bus fingers. A mouth experience much like fatty liver: that consistency and flavor with pockets of hot, grilled grease.
My Siciliano-Palermitano adventure left veal guts in my teeth and a smile on my face. Italy has made me far less cautious about the foods I eat, and the FDA would think I’m tempting fate by trying it all. But bring it on! Yum.
where is your camera?
Believe me, I’m shooting everything, I just can’t upload photos from my iPad to WordPress and I haven’t had a reliable Internet connection – or the desire to spend the time – to go online and read the blog forums about how to do it.
When I get back to Milan I’ll have some marathon uploading to do and you’ll (all) have to go back in the blog to see the photos.
The skewered veal guts are a great sight. So is the location where they were being cooked!