Palermo's Street Food

Paula Wolfert was a brave soul when she went to Palermo in 1987 in search of Sicilian Street food. She wrote about guasteddi in an article for The New York Times. They still sell that on the streets in Palermo today, although I must admit I prefer eating panini with Panelle -- fried fritters made of chick pea flour and parsley.
One thing is for sure though, if you are on a budget and traveling in Sicily, the street food cheap and buonissimo!

clipped from query.nytimes.com My husband and I were in Sicily searching out authentic Sicilian dishes. A Sicilian friend who lives in New York had spoken quite rapturously of a street food called guasteddi - fresh buns filled with ribbons of calf's spleen, ricotta cheese, strands of caciocavallo cheese and a drizzle of hot lard. ''I practically lived on those spleen-filled buns when I was a student,'' he said, sighing with nostalgia. ''They're the best street food of the city.'' But warning us that guasteddi might be a little harsh for our unschooled palates, he told us we could eat a highly refined version in a restaurant called Harry's Bar. When we got to Palermo we phoned up Harry's but were told they didn't serve the dish. I think we would have let the matter rest there, if, during our wanderings in The Vucciria, a maze of alleyways lined with food stands that is one of the great markets of the Mediterranean, we hadn't seen men hungrily lining up to buy guasteddi and then devouring them with gusto on the spot.