-coming soon-
At the market cuttlefishes do not look so pleasant: partly for their natural and monstrous shape, but also because they are dirty with their black ink. Apart from the aspect, cuttlefishes are very tasty, especially when they’re just caught. They have a characteristic bony skeleton (the so called “cuttlefish bone” that canaries use to peck) and a humeral sac, which in ancient times was used to prepare a colour called just “cuttlefish colour”. Today this sac is used in cooking to give a more intense taste to some dishes. In dialect it is called siccia, or prùppu-siccia. Furthermore there is a variety of small cuttlefishes (sometimes they’re confused with young cuttlefishes), the "seppiole", that are not more than 4-5 cm of length; in Sicilian dialect these are called beccaficu, malnascùi, spónce curriénti, siccitéddi, siccitéddi di nunnàta, and finally capputtédda. In the past the cuttlefish bone was used by sorceries to prepare love potions and health remedies. A "recipe" suggests to mash a bone and divide this powder in 3 portions: if a woman wanted to be sterile, she had to swallow a portion on an empty stomach for three consecutive days.
