Along the Road from Manchester to Marsala
Some culinary stories begin in kitchens; this one begins in Manchester, in the rainy hum of the Northern Quarter, where a group of Sicilian friends invited me to experience a week in the province of Trapani. “A proper week,” they said, “the kind where you taste things you won’t find on menus.” They were right. What awaited me in Marsala was a world of flavours older than recipes, older even than the stone farmhouses that dot the countryside.
I arrived as a guest of the Zerilli family, who welcomed me into their home with an ease that felt like stepping into a second life. Giuseppe—Peppe to everyone who loves him—had a plan: to show me the edible soul of Marsala, tucked away in the fertile countryside along the provincial road toward Salemi. It was there, under a bright Sicilian sky, that we wandered through fields still holding the morning’s coolness, gathering what he called verdura di una volta—the vegetables of another time.
The Character of a Wild Leaf
Among our finds, nestled between damp earth and a tangle of hedgerows, was a generous bundle of borage. Not the neatly trimmed supermarket kind—if such a thing exists—but the wild, stubborn, beautifully unruly kind. “She’s got personality,” Peppe laughed, as if introducing me to a distant relative. And indeed, borage felt less like an ingredient and more like a character in its own right.
Rough. Prickly. Slightly offended that you dared to pick her. Every leaf carried the perfume of wet fields, as though it had memorised the entire landscape. You don’t simply cook borage—you negotiate with it. And yet, there was something irresistible in its honesty, its greenness, its scent that seems to say: Slow down. I’ll take you somewhere.
Anna’s Quiet Ritual
Back in the Zerilli kitchen, Anna—Peppe’s wife and the calm equilibrium to his countryside enthusiasm—began her quiet ritual. Cleaning borage is not a task; it’s a meditation. She filled a bowl with water, plunged the leaves inside, changed the water, repeated. Each rinse removed a little more soil, a few more stubborn reminders of where the plant had lived. “You need patience,” she said, not looking up from her work. Patience, I soon realised, is the unspoken ingredient in every Sicilian dish worth remembering.
Once clean, the borage softened in a pot of salted boiling water, surrendering at last to the transformation ahead. Five minutes. No more. Enough to turn the wildness into something willing.
A Risotto with Deep Roots
The risotto began in the most unassuming way: a finely chopped spring onion, a ribbon of olive oil, and a gentle flame. Anna treated each step with reverence, as if the dish were an old friend who deserved nothing rushed or careless. The rice hit the pan with a soft sigh, warming, toasting, adjusting to the place it had landed.
The broth arrived slowly, ladle by ladle, the way you share confidences—with intention, without excess. And then, halfway through, came the moment that changed everything. She added the borage, roughly chopped, its green threads melting into the creamy white grains. The aroma lifted instantly: soft, vegetal, soothing, tinged with a nostalgia I couldn’t name.
“Every time,” she murmured, stirring, “she shows why we put up with all the cleaning.” And she was right. What emerged wasn’t just flavour but temperament—green, gentle, almost affectionate.
The Taste of a Sicilian Welcome
When the rice reached its perfect point, Anna finished the dish with a knob of butter and a snowfall of Sicilian pecorino. No decorations. No frills. Presented hot, immediately, as if delay might undo the magic. The first spoonful tasted of meadow and morning light, of rural wisdom and women who know the rhythm of the land better than clocks.
But more than anything, it tasted of friendship—the kind that can start in a rainy English city and find its way, with extraordinary ease, to a kitchen table on the western edge of Sicily. A bowl of risotto, a handful of wild leaves, a family who opened their home: sometimes the simplest things carry the longest journeys.