London Has Street Food, Catania Has a Symphony

London may pride itself on its bustling food markets, those little universes of steam, spice, and global flavours. And yet, nothing — truly nothing — prepares you for the full-bodied sensory explosion of the market in Catania. It is not merely a place where food is bought or sold. It is a living, breathing performance. A theatre of smoke and colour, where the air moves like a tide, thick with the perfume of citrus and fire.

I came to Sicily with purpose: to breathe in the island’s truest essence. And as any Sicilian will tell you, no guidebook, no monument, no museum will reveal Sicily as honestly as her food markets. Paola, my Catanese friend and indefatigable compass through this spirited chaos, led me by the wrist straight into a whirlwind of fragrance.

There was the sharp brightness of freshly sliced lemons; the warm, smoky breath of grilled meats; the rich, almost earthy perfume of olives and hard cheeses aging quietly in the shade of sun-worn awnings. Each inhalation felt like turning the page of a story written by fire, salt, and tradition.

When Smoke Becomes a Language

There is a moment in Catania’s market — a particular hour, unspoken but unmistakable — when the smoke rising from the grills ceases to be mere smoke. It becomes language. It curls upward like an incantation, blending with the abbanniate of vendors calling out their wares, mingling with the scent of the sea drifting in from the port. It fills your chest, your clothes, your thoughts. And long before it reaches your palate, it settles into your heart.

This is the hour of the pipi arrustuti — roasted peppers — a ritual as essential to the market as its stone pavements. Here, peppers are not humble side dishes. They are protagonists in a fiery drama.

The Theatre of the Grill

You see them lined up on the blackened grate, their glossy red skins swelling and splitting with little sighs, like laughter caught off guard. The flames lick their sides gently, almost affectionately, coaxing out sugars and stories.

Behind the grill stands the pepper master — every market has one. His hands stained with charcoal, his shirt perfumed with days spent over hot embers. He turns each pepper with the solemn patience of someone who knows that timing is everything. There is poetry in his muttering, a rhythm in his movements, a devotion in his craft.

In Catania, the grill is not a tool. It is an altar. And the pepper, slowly shedding its blistered skin, performs its own sacred monologue.

The Art of Peeling Fire

Roasted peppers, here, are never peeled with utensils. They are skinned by hand — bare fingertips brushing away charred curls of skin, heat biting at knuckles, a small sting reminding you that good food demands presence. It is an act of respect, almost an initiation. If you do not risk the burn, you have not earned the sweetness.

Once freed from their smoky cloak, the peppers are dressed simply: a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil thick as liquid gold, a whisper of salt, a few leaves of basil or mint. And always — always — a hunk of Catanese bread, that hard-crusted ring that cracks like old pottery beneath your teeth.

Tasting Memory

The first bite is not a taste. It is a recollection. Sweetness softened by smoke. The echo of fire. A hint of earth. It pulls you backward — to summers you lived, to summers you’ve imagined, to summers your ancestors might have known. All from a pepper kissed by flame.

Here, food is never just sustenance. It is memory made edible. A reminder that richness does not depend on abundance but on truth. And truth, in Sicily, is roasted red and smells faintly of smoke.

The Gospel of Simplicity

The roasted peppers of Catania carry a lesson: that simplicity is not poverty but grace. In that blistered skin and glowing red flesh resides a philosophy — that beauty emerges when you give fire, time, and patience the chance to work their quiet miracles.

Watching the smoke climb toward the sky like a wandering prayer, I realised something profoundly uncomplicated: happiness requires very little. A bit of embers. A pepper. A trusted friend. And a glass of deep Etna red wine.

Sometimes, joy is just that — a small, perfect thing born of fire.

Photo by Zoshua Colah on Unsplash