How to write a history of this fabulous pasticcio? The Mediterranean itself – a "sea between the lands" – defies easy definition. Arab, Greek, Etruscan, Roman, Hittite, Assyrian and Phoenician have all intertwined to form an indecipherable blend of peoples. The Great Sea, Professor David Abulafia's magnificent new history of the Mediterranean, celebrates sea-faring nationalities of bewildering mixed bloods and ethnicities. It was the Arabs who brought ices and sherbets to this part of the Mediterranean, and jasmine is surely a Saracen touch.
Yet, wonderfully, Sicily is the only place in Europe where they make jasmine ice cream. The term "Mafia" probably derives from the Arab mahias, meaning bully or braggart. For many northern Italians, Sicily is where Europe ends beyond is an African darkness. A joke told in the north of Italy (though scarcely a funny one) is that Sicily is the only Arab country not at war with Israel. The Saracen influence remains strongest in the Mafia-dominated west of Sicily, where the sirocco blows hot from Tunisia. The Arabs invaded Mediterranean Italy in the ninth century, leaving behind mosques and pink-domed cupolas.
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