Fichi d'India - the prickly pear and Palermo

Monte Pellegrino, Prickly pear, Palermo

Every time I cross the road, I am nearly killed.

Zebra crossings are just for show here. The green man stands, legs akimbo in suspended animation, simply to lure you into a false sense of security and subsequently to your untimely death. Angry horns blare: how dare you set foot on their turf! As you reach the pavement on the other side and you are narrowly missed by the swoosh of a Vespa at your heels, you thank Santa Rosalia and your lucky stars for keeping you on this earth. Afterall, there is still so much to see, so much to taste.

Forget meow meow, cocaine, bungee jumping, when we travel (even in places where motorists respect the rules) our senses are forced to heighten so we can brave the unfamiliar. I think it can become a drug, "Bitten by the travel bug," or so they say... but perhaps they were talking about those big red itchy lumps.

OK, so sometimes the side effects of traveling can be uncomfortable, put you on edge and make you jumpy but once you let go and accept a complete lack of control, things will become vivid and taste more intense.

Around every corner in Palermo is a hidden treat. It could be the sweet smell of cannoli shells spitting in boiling pig fat, drifting out the back door of a caffé, an ancient Greek necropolis waiting, unloved in the corner of an Arabic park, or an elegant statue of 'the Genius', carved into the side of a crumbling building. You only have to cross the street to come across a cheerful vendor hawking round, bright, luscious fruit from the boot of his micro-truck. And you made it to the other side of the road, take a bite.

I've been wanting to try Fichi d'India for a long time. The prickly pear caught my imagination the last time I was in Sicily but it was out of season and I could only gaze wishfully at the intimidating spines of unripe cacti or sip suspiciously on its sickly liqueur. Today, however, I make it to the other side...

Peeling Fichi d'India is a bit of a palaver because they are dangerous to touch with bare skin. Once I am beneath the hairy exterior, I find sweet flesh in pink, coral and mango hues. I am warned about the annoying pips, they are too hard for chewing, teeth-crackingly perilous in fact. Unfortunately, they are weaved into the fabric of the fruit and there is no avoiding them so I just have to swallow, like round black pills. But all is forgiven when the pulp dissolves in my mouth like sorbet with a fruity flavour that you could perhaps determine as one third apple, one third melon and one third magic.

Like Fichi d'India, Palermo is not without its faults. There is dirt, piles of it, dog shit, broken glass scrunches beneath your feet, poverty, there is no respect for the once grand buildings, now decaying into graffitied rubble. You ask any Palermitan and the thing that really gets their goat is, 'The busses don't run on time'. Yet if you question what their favourite city is, of course they will always say, 'Palermo'. As will I. Somehow, all this grime is part of its wonder. If everything were pristine, wouldn't it just be another arrogant cosmopolitan city? If every human were perfect, wouldn't they be dull and lacking balls like Ken and Barbie?

Gulf of Palermo from Mt Pellegrino

At home in England, every aspect of my life has to remain in control. My daily struggles exist in front of a computer. The safeness of it all shuts off any sense of vulnerability. 'How nice to be cozy and wrapped up in cotton wool,' you might say, but I've found that you can't numb one emotion, without numbing all of them and so somewhere along the line, bits of happiness are lost. Perhaps this is a coping mechanism I've created to deal with sickness, but whatever it is, it's not working anymore... Ultimately, we can't control what happens to us. No matter what, we will all have trials, è la vita.

In Palermo, you are vulnerable, there's no avoiding it. Like a naughty teenager, you can't control this city, you just have to sit back and do what it tells you or risk tantrum.

So when I visit Palermo, it's like a slap on the cheek, a wake-up call. Every time I eat humble impanata, it's like I'm crunching through thick, coppered, oily breadcrumbs into gooey smoked mozzarella for the very first time. I wake up in the morning to the awe-inspiring sight of Monte Pellegrino, with a sense that the statue of Santa Rosalia is overlooking the whole gulf from her post, this amazing woman, who is believed to have healed thousands. There is beauty too, if you choose to see it, in the streets, in the crumbling cornices of the seafront where the night air is filled with the warm woody smell of roasting chestnuts, being turned on a makeshift stove by aged men with no teeth. In listening, as a child, swings their legs back and forth from a balcony, chanting a melodic lullaby while the world passes by.

If the prickly pear didn't have obstacle spines and pips that punctuate the flesh, it would probably be a taste too fleeting, lost in the mouth. La dolce vita, whatever that may be, doesn't exist in languid afternoons, lounging upon a yacht. It is within the pulp of the fruit here, within the fabric of the faded buildings and in the passion of the kitchens. And so we accept this pear as we accept Palermo, with all of its prickles.