iconic Sicilian dish-5

According to Basile, the fried shell, golden and round, makes it look like a sour orange – a citrus imported by the Arabs between the 9th and 11th Centuries – which in the Sicilian dialect takes the name of arànciu (as masculine nouns typically end in ‘u’ in the Sicilian dialect), hence the name arancinu (small, sour orange). The name was later ‘Italianised’ to ‘arancino’ after Italy conquered Sicily.

“But then, in 1486, Portuguese merchants arrived to the port of Palermo bringing sweet oranges, called laranja,” Basile explained. “Because they wanted the arancinu to remind of the nicer flavour of this new kind of orange, citizens of Palermo and the surrounding areas changed the name from arancinu to the feminine arancina. That linguistic change, however, never occurred on the eastern side of the island.”

根据Basile的研究，炸饭团的金色和原形的外形，很像阿拉伯人在9-11世纪引入大一种酸味柑橘。西西里方言把aranciu（阳性）改变成了rancinu（小而酸的柑橘）。意大利人征服西西里之后，这个名字后来又意大利化为“arancino”

1486年，葡萄牙商人带着一种叫Iranja的甜味柑橘到达帕雷默港。因为想区别arancinu和这种新风味柑橘，帕雷默及周边居民把名字从arancinu改成阴性的arancina。不过，西西里东部的预研却没有发生这样的语言。