From the new menu: Chicken with six pomegranate seeds
The myth behind agriculture was born in Sicily. When Hades, god of the underworld, kidnapped Demeter’s daughter, Persephone, in the plain of Enna, he made her eat a pomegranate seed, and so he tied her to his underground kingdom. The kidnapping hurt Persephone’s mother to the point that the whole earth and women became barren. So Zeus decided that Persephone would stay six months underground and six months above ground, on earth: she would have spent half of the year with her husband and half with her mother. Thus the ancients explained the cycle of the seasons and the apparent death of nature in winter. Ciccio Sultano has created a dish out of this story: the six seeds are the six necessary steps from winter to summer, from the seed to life. The pomegranate in frost has been marinated by immersion in a water solution. The chicken is from the Aia Gaia farm, where they live and are fed outdoors. And then there’s the San Bernardo sauce, a typical element from the Sicilian baronial cuisine, which uses almonds instead of peanuts. Photos: Giuseppe Bornò.
Ciccio Sultano
A practical mind
