black olives

Beccafico sardines are a typical Sicilian recipe. Their name derives precisely from the fact that their shape must resemble the beccafico, a small bird that was hunted and consumed by Sicilian nobles. These birds were cooked whole including the entrails and placed next to each other. Popular wisdom in its daily poverty has been able to imitate the shape of these birds by wrapping the sardines in a roll and opening the tail of the sardines like the tail of a bird and filling the inside with pine nuts, breadcrumbs and other things to enrich their internal consistency. Today this dish, which has remained unchanged over time, has had great success and the sardines are prepared both fried and baked.