Pasta e Tenerumi: The Catania Summer Dish Tourists Never Hear About

Ask a tourist what Sicilian summer food looks like, and they’ll say granita, arancini, maybe caponata. Ask someone from Catania what we actually eat on a hot Tuesday in July, and the answer is pasta e tenerumi — a dish so local that even Sicilians from other parts of the island sometimes don’t know what tenerumi are. This is the pot my mother still makes every summer, and it’s exactly why you’ll probably never see it on a restaurant menu.

What exactly are tenerumi?

Tenerumi are the tender leaves and shoot tips of the cucuzza, a long, pale-green summer squash that grows on a climbing vine — you’ll see it trained over pergolas and balcony railings all over the Catania countryside in July and August. Only the soft, young growth at the tips gets used; the older leaves and the thick central stems are too fibrous and bitter to cook down properly. At the market, they’re sold tied into loose bunches, leaves, tendrils, and thin stems all together, and part of the prep work is simply stripping out the parts that are actually tender enough to eat.

Method

Prep the tenerumi: Strip the tender leaves and shoot tips away from the tougher stems, wash thoroughly (they trap grit), and roughly chop.

The base: Warm the olive oil in a large pot and sauté the garlic, and the onion if you’re using one, until fragrant — don’t let it brown. Add the chopped tomatoes with a pinch of salt and let them soften for a few minutes.

The broth: Add the tenerumi and enough water to cover everything generously. This is what becomes the soup base, so don’t skimp on the water. Simmer for 15 to 20 minutes, until the leaves are properly tender, not just wilted.

The pasta: Break the spaghetti into short pieces — a few centimeters each — and add it directly into the pot. Cook until al dente, stirring now and then, and top up with more water if it’s getting too thick. This isn’t a dish you drain: the starch from the pasta thickens the broth slightly, but it should still be brothy enough to eat with a spoon.

To finish: A drizzle of raw, good olive oil on top, torn basil leaves, and if you want it, a scattering of grated pecorino or a pinch of chili flakes. Serve hot, straight away.

The most important tip: don’t let it turn into a regular pasta

The single most common mistake people make trying this outside Sicily is treating it like a normal pasta dish — cooking the pasta separately, draining it, tossing it with the vegetables. That gives you something drier and heavier than what this dish actually is. Pasta e tenerumi is meant to be loose and soupy, cooked together in one pot so the pasta releases its starch straight into the broth. If yours comes out thick enough to eat with a fork instead of a spoon, you’ve made a different dish.

Why you won’t find this on a menu

Tenerumi soup isn’t restaurant food, and it never really was. It comes from the same logic as a lot of Sicilian home cooking: cheap, plentiful garden greens, a handful of pasta to stretch it into a full meal, and a pot that feeds the whole family for not much money. Restaurants in Catania serve pasta alla Norma, arancini, seafood — dishes with more visual appeal on a plate and a higher margin. Tenerumi soup, meanwhile, is what actually happens on the stove in people’s homes in July, which is exactly why almost nothing about it is written down or plated up for tourists. If you want to genuinely eat like a Catania household in summer instead of like a visitor, this is the dish, not a restaurant tasting menu.

Serving and storing

Eat it fresh, the same day — the pasta keeps absorbing liquid the longer it sits, and by the next day it turns into more of a dense stew than the loose, brothy soup it’s supposed to be. If you do have leftovers, thin them out with a splash of hot water and a little more olive oil when reheating rather than serving it straight from the fridge.