Street food at Ballarò Market in Palermo, Sicily. The craziest market in Italy!

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Strolling through the streets of some of Palermo's neighborhoods, you feel like you're in one of the souks of any Muslim city. It's no coincidence that some markets were built during Arab rule, and even today, you can still see the appearance, the buying and selling practices, the colors, the smells, and the custom of flooding streets and squares with stalls, baskets, and colorful awnings, typical of traditional North African markets. Palermo's markets are the ideal place for an authentic immersion in the past and the most ancient traditions of the Palermitan people. Palermo's historic markets are truly living monuments! You can't visit this splendid city without admiring these spectacular and picturesque markets. They are, in fact, a virtual synthesis of the colorful and cheerful nature and the multifaceted and cosmopolitan culture of the Palermitan people. As you delve into the depths of these markets, you're constantly accompanied by the loud, often colorful calls of the various street vendors inviting you to buy their wares. This picturesque invitation is called "abbanniata" in the Palermitan dialect. And indeed, part of the spectacle is also listening to this "folk music" typical of historic markets. In these historic markets, you can buy a bit of everything, especially fruit, vegetables, fish, and meat. Let's just say that every self-respecting Palermitan knows which market to choose based on what they're buying. The most important historic markets in Palermo are: Ballarò, Vucciria, Capo, and Borgo Vecchio.
Ballarò is the oldest and largest market in the city, stretching from Piazza Casa Professa to the bastions of Corso Tukory.
Some time ago, it was more concentrated around Piazza Ballarò, which, as Gaspare Palermo wrote in his 19th-century Guide, was "a square of grass in the Albergheria neighborhood, oblong in shape and not very wide, with a floor paved with large cobblestones." These few lines perhaps capture the entire world of Ballarò, which for so many centuries has existed in the shadow of the Carmelite Fathers' church. "Piazza di Grascia" refers to the specialization of the various shopkeepers, namely, the sale of food (grascia).
This market, in the common Palermitan sense, is dedicated to the sale of early fruits and everything from the surrounding countryside or from non-European countries. It dates back to the era of Arab rule.
There are several theories about the etymology of the word Ballarò: one hypothesis is that it derives from Bahlara, the name of a village near Monreale, where the goods for sale came from, or from Ag-Vallaraja (title of the rulers of the Indian region of Sind), since spices from the Deccan were sold there, or from Segeballarath, meaning "fair-market."