Minestre siciliane e un osservato speciale: la minestra di tenerumi

This chapter examines a family of dishes that is widespread in Italy and Sicily, that of soups. The term soup, which is very difficult to translate, collects dishes that are sometimes very different from each other to the point of joining, in the older recipe books, all the Italian first courses. In the chapter the problem of the semantic vagueness of the term will be investigated and we will examine one of the most famous Sicilian soups: the "minestra di tenerumi", characterized by the presence of a native ingredient, the long cucuzza with its leaves. The presence of this ingredient helps to stabilize the identity of the dish, on the one hand, and to sanction its typicality and, therefore, its Sicilian character, on the other.