Christmas lunch at Palazzo Previtera: a family celebration.
Just a few days until Christmas 2022, a family lunch at Palazzo Previtera. The decorations already set up in fir, oak, ilex berries collected on the BonneHerbe estate on Etna. Hand-decorated Christmas wreaths with red and jute bows decorate the front door. The menu has already been decided according to family traditions and respect for the environment and sustainability. Everyone at Palazzo Previtera is busy in the kitchen preparing the old recipes for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Scent of warm bread, Christmas sweets with hazelnuts, honey and almonds, fresh homemade pasta, meat sauces and roasts, and you can't miss the fish from the sea of Riposto, a seaside place on the Ionian sea. Christmas is a very important celebration which involves all the members of the Previtera family, from the youngest to the oldest, gathered around one large table to celebrate the birth of the baby Jesus. According to tradition, Christmas Eve includes a menu based on fish, while on Christmas day the menu is based on meat. It doesn't matter, traditions change and menus reflect the ancient family traditions handed down from generation to generation.
At Palazzo Previtera, there is no shortage of traditional Christmas sweets, mustaccioli prepared with hazelnuts and honey and a very thin sheet of flour and water. Hazelnuts are a symbolic fruit of the Previtera family who have been cultivating this fruit since the 1600s at the BonneHerbe estate in Castiglione di Sicilia. Sicilian bread and pizzas as an appetizer on the day before leavened and not leavened according to the Sicilian tradition. The focaccia filled with country vegetables, PDO sausage from Etna and the traditional pizzas covered with tomato sauce. Then fried cod, easy to make, very tasty and made with only two main ingredients: flour and cod. Among the first homemade macaroni, al ferretto are one of the most loved homemade fresh pasta formats of Sicilian cuisine prepared on the eve of December 25th. For Christmas day, baked stuffed capon with apples, bacon, hazelnuts and chestnuts; slow and constant cooking, a soft and delicious filling. Sweet and sour stuffed rabbit. another traditional dish but off the menu this year in respect of sustainability. Many dishes revisited by the ancient cookbook of Palazzo Previtera.
At the end, the panettone symbol of Christmas, but revisited in a Sicilian key, stuffed with tomatoes and candied olives and cubes of salted ricotta. A delight for the most refined palates. For the more traditional, the Sicilian cassata and ricotta cannoli, accompanied with a Passito di Pantelleria or a Malvasia delle Lipari.
Christmas will also be the crib, the Christmas mass on Christmas Eve and greetings with a good tea on Boxing Day.
We wish you happy holidays from Palazzo Previtera, Linguaglossa Etna Nord.
