The Church of Saint John of the Hermits is one of the most famous landmarks in Palermo. It was built in the Arabic-Norman style. It has single nave surmounted by five picturesque cupolas in vivid red color. The garden adjacent to the church is full of fragrant flowers and citrus blossoms. The small cloister, with a well or a cistern in the center, was part of the original monastery of the order of the Benedictine nuns of our Lady of Mt. Oliveto, who occupied this site to the end of the XI century. The nuns prepared the tripe called Olivetana with the few ingredients they had available: their creativity and skill resulted in this delicious dish still being prepared to present days.
There are many versions of tripe Olivetana, and many places in Sicily claim the originality of this course, some bake it, some make into a pie, and even though they use the same ingredients adding boiled eggs instead of cooking the eggs with the tripe, gives a different finished product. This is a popular recipe used in Palermo. My family made “trippa alivetana” using this recipe, and in the same way, we cooked tripe Olivetana at Joe’s of Avenue U, in Brooklyn, NY.