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Sicily is not a great cheese producer, though fresh ricotta is hard to beat. Usually made from sheep’s or goat’s milk, it comes in a delectable creamy fresh form as well as smoked or dried for grating over pasta dishes. Seasoned, if somewhat bland, cheeses worth trying are caciocavallo and canestrato – known as tuma when fresh, then primu sali when salted.

Notables in the vast vegetable field are pomodori (tomatoes), which ripened under the African-like sun can be memorable, as well as carciofi (artichokes) and broccoli tossed over pasta. Contorno means a vegetable side dish.

Fruit is dominated by citrus, namely arancie (oranges), arancie sanguigne(blood oranges), limoni (lemons) and the monstrous knobbly fruit known as cedri (citrons), similar to a lemon and excellent for candying and confectionery.

Last but by no means least are the dolci, pastries, ice creams and sweets in general. This class, an art form, encompasses generous mouth-watering cakes made of melt-in-the-mouth pasta di mandorla, a lighter version of marzipan, as well as the famous cannoli, tubes of fried flaky pastry stuffed with a rich mixture of ricotta cheese and candied fruits, virtually a meal in itself. In a similar vein is cassata, often an ice cream concoction, then there’s the superb torrone, alias nougat, which comes in mind-boggling variations based on honey, almond and pistachio. Gelato (ices) assumes a new meaning and dimension in Sicily. The creamy types can be unforgettable and the lighter fruit flavours are usually sorbetto, said to have been invented by the Arabs who used snow from Etna combined with the juice of locally grown citrus fruit.