Sicilian Sweet-and-Sour Pumpkin – U Ficatu ri Sette Cannola

There is a dish in Palermo called u ficatu ri sette cannola — “the liver of the seven spouts” — and there is no liver in it. There never was. It is pumpkin, fried and dressed in vinegar and sugar, and the name is the most interesting thing on the plate.

A poor kitchen copying a rich one

In the 18th century, Palermo’s aristocratic households employed French-trained cooks, and one of the things that came out of those kitchens was liver in sweet-and-sour sauce. It was expensive and it was fashionable.

Everyone else cooked pumpkin instead. Same pan, same vinegar, same sugar, same mint — a cheap vegetable treated with the exact technique used on an expensive ingredient, until it tasted enough like the original to borrow its name.

That is the whole dish, and it is worth knowing before you eat it. It is not a vegetable side that happens to be sweet-and-sour. It is an impersonation, and a confident one.

Where the name comes from

Sette cannola means “seven spouts”. The usual explanation points at the fountain of the Garraffello, in the middle of the Vucciria market, which had seven bronze spouts. Street sellers worked around it, and they sold this by shouting “u fìcatu ri setti cannola” over the noise — the liver from the seven-spout fountain.

There is a competing account that puts the origin in Settecannoli, a district on the other side of the city. Nobody can settle it, and both stories say the same thing about the dish: it belongs to the street and the market, not the dining room it was imitating.

You can still find it at stalls in the Ballarò and the Vucciria, sold by the portion from a tray, at room temperature, in September and through the autumn.

Method

The pumpkin. Cut it thicker than you would for roasting — about a centimetre. Thin slices disintegrate when you turn them and end up as a purée in vinegar, which is a different and much worse dish.

The frying. Plenty of olive oil, medium heat, in batches. You want deep golden edges and a soft middle, which takes longer than you expect: rushing it on high heat colours the outside before the inside is done. Drain on paper and salt while hot.

The agrodolce. Warm the vinegar and sugar in a small pan for about two minutes — only until the sugar dissolves and the vinegar stops smelling raw. This is not a reduction and not a syrup. Cook it down and you get a glaze that sits on top instead of soaking in.

Layering. Pumpkin, then garlic and torn mint, then more pumpkin, then the warm agrodolce poured over the whole thing so it works its way down.

The part that is not optional

Two hours minimum at room temperature. Overnight is better.

Freshly made, this tastes like fried pumpkin with vinegar on it. After a night in the fridge — taken out an hour before eating — the vinegar and sugar have gone into the flesh and the mint has scented the oil, and it becomes the thing it is supposed to be. Every Sicilian agrodolce works this way, caponata included.

What to use outside Sicily

Here it is made with zucca rossa, the big long-necked squash sold in wedges at the market, dense and dry-fleshed and properly sweet.

Butternut squash is the honest substitute and it works. What does not work is the large watery orange pumpkin sold for carving — it has no sugar in it and it falls apart in the pan. If that is the only thing in the shop, make something else this week.

Serving

Room temperature, as an antipasto or a contorno, with bread for the glaze in the bottom of the dish. It sits well on a table with other cold things — olives, cheese, caponata — which is how it usually turns up in a Palermo house rather than as a course of its own.

More Sicilian cooking, and where these dishes come from, at sicily-insider.com — and the markets themselves are on our interactive Sicily map.