When I talk about food, I talk about memories.
Almost all the ingredients I grew up with are related to some memory or person, but I think this happens to everyone. It is called the 'food of memory' thanks to smell and taste, the only two senses connected to the hippocampus, that is, to long-term memory. They are indelible memories.
But what is the food of memory?
It is that smell, that image that overwhelms us and suddenly upsets us, taking us back in time to moments full of joy, childhood memories or particular episodes of our life.
My food of memory today is the Fragolina di Sciacca. (Strawberry Jam)
And immediately I sense the spring days, the Sicilian sun, the sweet and intoxicating scent of the strawberry, I see the rows of low bushes stained by these small and sweet berries.
I remember going to my uncle’s who had a strawberry field to help them pick. It was actually my parents helping, I and my cousins were there for the free tasting.
Whenever I talk about the strawberry, this image returns vivid and vibrant in front of my eyes. The admonitions of adults not to step on the plants, to bend down to collect these delights.
More than 3 decades have passed, but every time I enter a strawberry field that image pervades me.
But what about the strawberry that is called the "capricciosa".
Delicate and fragrant, small and graceful, it is a delight for the palate, perfect if used for jams or granitas, but the best way to savour it is with your hands picked directly from the fields.
The strawberry of Sciacca and Ribera is very soft, with globular red fruits melting in the mouth and is called "capricciosa" because its cultivation is complicated and laborious. The plants are kept low in small plots of land enclosed between tall leaf plants to stop the destructive action of the wind.
On our coasts the Sicilian wind is the Scirocco, arid and sterile that easily destroys crops and ruins the strawberry plants in a few hours.
I remember June 10 this year, fortunately at the end of the harvest season, a sirocco wind came and taking a trip to my friends' fields I noticed that the plants were all burned, as if a flame had roasted them. the leaves were all brown, the fruits withered. The harvest could have lasted another 15 days, but it was over for that year.
The Sciacca and Ribera strawberry is a Slow Food Presidium product and is recognized by the Sicilian region as a Traditional Agri-food Product (PAT).
But you were wondering how the wild strawberry arrived in Sicily?
Certainly it is not native to our area and a legend tells that it was brought to Sicily by two soldiers at the time of the Great War. Two soldiers collected the plants from the undergrowth of the Alps, wrapped them in a bundle and transported them on foot to Ribera.
Here they transplanted them into the Verdura Valley, between the two towns of Sciacca and Ribera, where the strawberry found the sun and the fertility of the Sicilian land and became perfectly acclimatized.
Since the 1930s they have been cultivated in the shade of the famous orange groves in the Verdura Valley, which guaranteed shelter from the wind and created a humid and shady environment just like the great forests of the north.
Over the years many of the plantations were moved inland, always sheltered from the sun among the centuries-old olive trees of the 'Chiana' district or in the hills of Caltabellotta, where an association of farmers has created "The goddess of perfume" a cooperative that manages various fields scattered throughout the territory.
And it is precisely there that my knowledge of the strawberry began at the age of 7 in the fields of the 'Chiana' district of Sciacca (which means plain), a large flat area with fertile soil rich in centuries-old olive groves. And always from there my story as an adult and as a lover of Sicilian food continues.
I love to use strawberries in desserts but I can also use them as a savoury element in hot dishes, transforming it into a sweet and sour sauce that goes very well with a risotto with caciocavallo cheese and broad bean ragout.
The recipe for Strawberry Jam
- Sciacca strawberries 500 gr
- Granulated sugar 100 gr
- Peel of 1 \ 2 lemon
- A few drops of lemon juice
Mix all the ingredients and mash with a spoon. Leave to macerate for 2 hours.
Cook the mixture over low heat for 30 \ 40 minutes. Place in sterilized jars, close the lid and turn them over with the lid down on tol cool.
Enjoy your meal with Sciacca strawberries.
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