“I will give you better prices than any man in Palermo!”
Where the market-place broadens to its widest, stands a friggetoria.
On its marble counter lay a vast copper basin of crisp fried fish that looked like whitebait.
“What does the Signorino desire?” asked the fishwife, a tall woman with a superb coiffure and piercing black Saracen eyes. “Scoponi? that is good to make zuppa alla marinaia, calamaretti, gamberi?”
“Which is the scoponi?”
She picked up a big, very handsome blood-red fish, and held it out to Patsy to show how fresh it was.
Leaving him to deal with the fishwife I passed on to the fruit stall.
It was a bad season, the fruttaiuola said. Here were precious mandarins and oranges; she held one up.
“Behold; you can see the blood through the skin; they are all like this.” She showed an orange cut in half, the pulp ruby as a pomegranate. “Oh, the blood oranges of Palermo are famous, they bring a great price at Naples.”
I bought a basket like a net; my fruttaiuola filled it with citrons, lemons, oranges,—adding one of those rare winter melons Teodoro had recommended. From the market we made our way to the Marina, a beautiful curving avenue with fine palaces and gardens fronting the sea.