{"id":14744,"date":"2026-06-10T12:56:03","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T10:56:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/suabroad.syr.edu\/florence\/?p=14744"},"modified":"2026-06-10T13:00:47","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T11:00:47","slug":"from-palermo-to-etna-students-explore-sicilys-food-culture-in-spring-signature-seminar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/suabroad.syr.edu\/florence\/2026\/06\/10\/from-palermo-to-etna-students-explore-sicilys-food-culture-in-spring-signature-seminar\/","title":{"rendered":"From Palermo to Etna: Students Explore Sicily’s Food Culture in Spring Signature Seminar"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Photos by Sasha Laurenzo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Food Studies professor Olivier De Maret led ten days of immersive learning across the island<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This May a group of Syracuse Florence students traded the familiar cobblestones of Tuscany for the sun-drenched markets and volcanic hillsides of Sicily. From April 30 to May 9, they traveled the length of the island as part of Culinary Crossings<\/em>, a Signature Seminar designed and led by food studies professor Olivier De Maret that used cuisine as a window onto centuries of Mediterranean history, culture, and exchange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The seminar was exclusively food-focused unlike a previous travel seminar led by De Maret in collaboration with retired photography professor Stefania Talini. “This time around we focused on getting to know the people that make up the island’s food system,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Markets, Farms, and Family Tables<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ten-day itinerary moved students through some of Sicily’s most distinctive culinary landscapes. In Palermo, they dove headfirst into the city’s legendary street food culture with a guided tour of the Ballar\u00f2 market \u2014 one of the oldest and most vibrant outdoor markets in southern Italy \u2014 complete with tastings. De Maret remarked on the contrast to Florence: “Especially the energy we witnessed in Palermo’s outdoor markets, as well as the kindness, openness and hospitality Sicilians showed us.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From Palermo, the group traveled east to the island’s rolling interior, stopping at the Azienda Agricola Fiumefreddo near Troina before continuing to the Baroque city of Siracusa, where they were based for four nights. Days out of Siracusa brought visits to the Bonajuto chocolate factory in Modica \u2014 Sicily’s legendary chocolate-making center, where the ancient Aztec-influenced method of cold-processing cacao has been practiced since the 1700s \u2014 as well as a cooking class in Noto and a visit to Il Biviere, an organic citrus farm in Lentini.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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At the Bonajuto chocolate factory in Modica<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The seminar concluded near Etna, where students visited the Fattorie Romeo del Castello in Randazzo, a historic wine and farming estate on the volcano’s northern slopes, before a final dinner together in Taormina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Transformed by These Experiences”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The highlights of the trip were the two farm visits: Fiumefreddo and Romeo del Castello. “In both places, we were warmly welcomed into family homes and involved in daily activities,” said De Maret. “Besides learning new skills such as gardening, we felt the care and joy put into the production, preparation and sharing of food in very intimate contexts. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that most of us were transformed by these experiences \u2014 including the families hosting us.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Why Sicily?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The choice of Sicily as a destination was itself pedagogically significant. De Maret sees the island’s cuisine as a kind of living archive of the Mediterranean world<\/strong> \u2014 layered with the influences of Greek, Arab, Norman, Spanish, and Italian cultures that have passed through over millennia. “Sicily and its cuisine provide a fascinating lens through which to approach these exchanges,” he explained, “and reflect on what makes Italian cuisine Italian, if anything.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That question \u2014 deceptively simple, endlessly complex \u2014 was central to what he hoped students would take away. “The multiplicity of meanings associated with Sicilian cuisine<\/strong>, and how the history of the island and contemporary interests shape it,” De Maret said of the seminar’s core lessons. Beyond the specifics of Sicilian food, he hopes the experience planted a more lasting habit of mind: “I hope that students now see the value of thinking through food in order to understand the world and their place in it \u2014 and that they will keep thinking critically about broader social and cultural processes at play in kitchens and beyond.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Culinary Crossings: Food Culture, Identity and the Mediterranean<\/em> is offered as part of the university’s Signature Seminars initiative, which supports faculty-led travel courses that extend classroom learning into the field.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Photos by Sasha Laurenzo. Food Studies professor Olivier De Maret led ten days of immersive learning across the island This May a group of Syracuse Florence students traded the familiar cobblestones of Tuscany for the sun-drenched markets and volcanic hillsides of Sicily. From April 30 to May 9, they traveled the length of the island…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":14748,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"wds_primary_category":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/suabroad.syr.edu\/florence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/suabroad.syr.edu\/florence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/suabroad.syr.edu\/florence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/suabroad.syr.edu\/florence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/suabroad.syr.edu\/florence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14744"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/suabroad.syr.edu\/florence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14773,"href":"https:\/\/suabroad.syr.edu\/florence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14744\/revisions\/14773"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/suabroad.syr.edu\/florence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/suabroad.syr.edu\/florence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/suabroad.syr.edu\/florence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/suabroad.syr.edu\/florence\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}