Food for Thought: Mangia Betta

Panelle (Chickpea Fritters) from Mangia Bedda.

You can get food inspiration for free by reading up on the dishes prepared by favorite chefs and hole-in-the-wall ethnic restaurants. Such was the case with a recent FB post by Ric Orlando, an inventive local chef. He’s been leading tours of Sicily and shared a vegetarian sandwich he had made with two Sicilian dishes, Panelle (Chickpea Fritters) and Cazzilli (Fried Potato Croquettes).

What? A search for recipes for these two hitherto-unknown products led us to Mangia Bedda, a wonderful blog by Nadia who is “documenting my mother’s recipes in order to preserve them and pass them on to future generations” and augmenting them with discoveries from her own travels in Sicily. I will warn you this is a heavily monetized website in which the preparation descriptions are drawn out to make room for lots of advertising, but in this case much of the filler material is actually useful.

Hazelnut Cake from Mangia Bedda.

A good example is this recipe for Sicilian Hazelnut Cake which describes the heritage of Sicilian hazelnuts from the Neroni and advises us on the best texture for grinding the hazelnuts to create a dessert which is meaty and not too sweet. I have a couple of bags of hazelnuts and you can bet I’m going to try this one.

Seafood Aranchini and Cipolline Catanesi (Sicilian Onion Puff Pastry Tarts) are two more that made it on my must-try list. Or simply dive into the recipe index. You surely can eat better with Mangia Bedda, so check it out.