Bergamot, an extraordinary fruit

27.4.2023

Identikit for an extraordinary fruit?

The SCIENTIFIC NAME is Citrus Bergamia Risso, from the Rutaceae FAMILY. It has been cultivated in CALABRIA since the mid-eighteenth century. The PLANT is a very strange fruit tree; in fact, it produces hesperides that are too bitter to be able to constitute a regular food, raw or cooked, and its economic importance derives almost exclusively from the essence.

ANSWER: It’s the bergamot!

ORIGINS

The origin is unknown and the botanical collocation controversial (one of the many citrus hybrids according to some, a mutation of the melangolo or lime according to others… but in the meantime it has reached the status of species); Italy, through Calabria, has almost the world monopoly. In fact, more than 80% of the production of bergamots comes from the lower Ionian of Reggio: a coastal arc that goes from Scilla to Monasterace, passing through places such as, among others, Villa San Giovanni, Melito di Porto Salvo, Bova, Branca Leone, Piati , Gerace, Siderno, Gioiosa and Roccella Ionica, Riace.

It seems that here, at the extreme tip of the boot (Melito is the southernmost municipality of peninsular Italy), the plant was already known in the sixteenth century, but the first specialized plant of which documentation exists dates back to 1750 on the coast of Reggio Calabria. The name, probably from the Turkish begarmundi (“pear of the lord”), would suggest a provenance from Asia Minor; the legends on the subject are more numerous than usual, including the imaginative hypothesis of a Bergamo origin. But it is not excluded that it is an ecotype that developed on site.

It is a tree three to four meters tall, with branches in which rudimentary thorns are sometimes found in the axils of the leaves, shiny and leathery. The numerous hermaphroditic flowers, mostly grouped in racemes, are white and very fragrant. The fruit, slightly larger than an orange, ranging in color from green to yellow depending on the degree of ripeness, has a peel with a floral, fresh and penetrating scent, very rich in essential oils. The pulp, divided into a number of segments ranging from 12 to 15, with few seeds, provides a very acidic and bitter juice.

PEDOCLIMATIC NEEDS

Sun for 300 days a year, hot summers without rain, mild winters, very rainy early spring and late autumn: this is the climate of southern Calabria overlooking the Ionian, evidently ideal for cultivation. Bergamot tolerates heat well, not excessive or scarce rainfall and sudden changes in temperature: below 10 °C, development stops and, if young, the plant dies. As for soils, it prefers medium-textured, deep, fertile and well-drained ones, with a pH between 6.5 and 7.5.

The deep green

CULTIVATION INDICATIONS

The plant to be cultivated is obtained by grafting onto bitter orange (melangolo) or trifoliate (poncirus). It has an average productive life of 25 years: it begins to bear fruit at 3, reaches its maximum at 8. It needs water, as well as in the first years of growth, in spring and autumn: but on the Ionian coast the seasonal rains are enough, so that the Irrigation is only necessary in very dry summers. As and more than ever, water stagnation must be avoided, otherwise the root system will rot.

SEASONALITY

On the Calabrian coast, bergamots are harvested between November and January.

IN THE GARDEN OR IN A POT

In commercial plants, bergamots spend the first year of their life in pots (where they must remain if cultivated at an amateur level in the internal Apennine regions or in the North), then they are buried in the most sunny and bright position possible, at 4-5 meters away from each other. To shelter them from the strong winds that blow from the Strait all year round, dense and tall rows of pine are planted in the Reggio area on the side towards the sea.

NUTRITIVE PROPERTIES

Like all citrus fruits, the fruit contains high quantities of vitamins (C, A, B), mineral salts, polyphenols and other antioxidant elements. If you manage to drink it, the juice is refreshing, invigorating, eupeptic. In popular medicine, the peel was used to combat respiratory diseases and for its analgesic, healing, antiseptic, bactericidal and vermifuge properties. Further, according to recent studies, the extract would be able to keep the “bad” cholesterol at bay and increase the “good” one.

The fruit on the tree

STORAGE

The rules are practically superfluous, since fresh bergamot is a rarity: if “it comes into your possession, it is advisable not to keep it in the refrigerator but in a cool place (ideal temperature 8-10 °C). dry and dark.

USES

Bergamot almost never arrives on the table, also because it can be purchased sporadically in retail, only from producers who keep some for self-consumption, selling the bulk of the harvest to the industry for transformation into essence.

The curious can experiment with it in juices, in wedges in salads, as a condiment for meat and fish – instead of lemon -, as a corrective for drinks (some well-known black tea blends are flavored with bergamot), zest with which to decorate cocktails. Attempts to encourage fresh consumption appear to have had some success in the “Italian ice cream parlors” of various countries around the world.

The main use concerns the essences extracted from the peel, but also from the flowers, leaves and younger branches. Obtained by mechanical pressing, with peeling machines defined for centuries as “Calabrian”, bergamot essential oil is a precious product: two quintals of fruit are needed to obtain one kilo. The one worked on the Ionian coast of Reggio, to which the DOP (protected designation of origin) has been recognised, is exported all over the world. The main, and oldest, destination is the perfume industry, as a component of cologne and toilet waters, to which it gives, by fixing the aromatic bouquet , a fresh and citrus note sometimes considered essential, they also obtain drugs and phytotherapeutic remedies . Complementary essential oil products they are neroli (distillate of flowers, for soaps and moisturizing creams) and petit-grain (distillate of twigs and leaves, for perfumes and bath foams). Vaguely gastronomic applications have the aromas extracted from the rind, used in liqueurs and confectionery, sometimes also to “season” drinks, baked sweets, pastes, olive oils.

ITALIAN AND CALABRIAN EXCLUSIVE

In world production, Calabria is followed at a great distance by some southwestern American states (California, Arizona, Nevada) and by Brazil, Argentina, Israel. But in Calabria bergamots are different from those grown in those territories, because in this region they have been growing for centuries along about eighty kilometers of the Ionian coast. From the peel of foreign fruits, which has a certainly lower oil content, a less valuable essence is obtained – reinforced” in poor-quality perfumes with further synthetic substances. The lobbies of the European chemical industry have attempted to multiply their business, proposing to reduce the concentration of essential oils by law from 12 to 0.1%, which would have favored foreign fruits and meant the end of the DOP product of Reggio Calabria.Fortunately, the great perfume houses – Chanel, Dior, Guerlain – agreed they sided with the Calabrian consortium: once the attack was thwarted, the story confirmed in some respects that the “real” bergamot is only an Italian citrus fruit, indeed an exclusive Calabrian one.

The white flower of Bergamot

A SCENTED COAST

The Reggio coast bathed by the Ionian Sea is often called the Riviera dei Gelsomini, a term that includes the geographical denomination of Locride. Further, the territory hands down the memory of a thriving production such as that of bergamot. In fact, throughout the province of Reggio Calabria, especially along the coastal strip between Punta Stilo (municipality of Monasterace) and Capo Spartivento (municipality of Palizzi), from the 1920s to the middle of the last century, both bergamots and jasmines grow, the latter beautiful climbing plants of Caucasian origin, whose flowers were mainly destined for the perfume industry (evidently the “smelling” vocation of the area is not limited to bergamot!). At the harvesting, manual, almost only women and girls (the jasmine groves) were employed, the product was worked on site and the essence, together with that of the bergamot, was exported halfway around the world, above all to France, constituting an important source of income for residents. An activity that has practically disappeared, even if in some towns in the area there are still some laboratories where oil is still extracted from jasmine petals.

CALABRIAN CULTIVARS

Fantastic

CHARACTERISTICS: it is the most cultivated variety on the 1500 hectares of the Calabrian coastal area planted with Bergamot, covering 75% of the production. It is a medium-large, pear-shaped fruit, very rich in essential oils.

RIPENING : November-January

Femminello

FEATURES: Slender, fast-growing tree, more productive than others but not very long-lived, with relatively high thermal and water requirements. Medium-small spherical fruit with smooth skin

RIPENING November-January

Castagnaro

FEATURES: Very vigorous and long-lived variety, resistant to wind, characterized by a strong alternation of production. Large and wrinkled fruit

RIPENING November-January

Calabrese “Scirubbetta”, the oldest ice cream in the World

25.1.2023

The main ingredient is snow… the purest one, but not the one that has just fallen, but the one called “ciciarusa” in jargon , which is snow that has turned into grains of ice due to the alternation of daytime heat with night frosts, collected in pristine spaces of our beloved Calabria.

The Calabrian scirubbetta , or snow mixed with fig honey or cooked must, is a beautiful custom that is still very much alive in Calabria when the white winter flakes arrive. A preparation as simple as it is ancient, whose origin is lost in the mists of time and is to be considered as the first ice cream in history.

Snow Flakes, the ingredient

AN ANCIENT TRADITION

The name scirubetta comes from the Turkish “sharbat” which means “beverage”, a term in turn derived from the Arabic “sharbat”, from which the Italian words “syrup” and “ sorbet” also originate. Sharbat in the Middle East is a sweet drink served very cold, of various textures to be savored by the spoonful.

A profound tradition that opens on the primordial form of ice cream and traces of which can be found in any population that has had access to snowy mountain areas. A sort of ice cream for the poor.

The mother-recipe: Sharbat

The traditional preparation of the scirubetta involved the collection of snow in a large pot from which it was then redistributed directly into glasses or cups or into a centerpiece tray in which the magical and generous encounter with the sweet fig honey took place, elsewhere popularly called vincotto di fichi or simply cooked with figs, prepared by housewives in the last part of summer.

In some areas of Calabria cooked must was also used. In more recent times, but still daughters of the ancient oriental tradition, the variants of scirubetta di neve with orange juice (winter fruit by definition) or lemon and sugar, or again with coffee and sugar, or finally with chocolate.

Cooked must for scirubetta

THE ICE CREAM ARCHETYPE

The definition of granita is inadequate, since it was made through the processing of long slabs of ice, using a special machine. It is not even a sherbet, as it is made with the addition of milk and other ingredients. Scirubetta is, in truth , the oldest form of ice cream and, probably, Calabria was one of the first regions of southern Italy (thanks to its mountain ranges) where this preparation was experimented and conceived for the first time.

Suffice it to say that about a century ago, in the historic center of Cosenza there was a street called the “vineddra da nivi” (today Via Spirito Santo) where the snow collected in the Sila was sold to allow citizens to savor the scirubetta, rigorously prepared with cooked fig honey (better known as fig honey) or, alternatively, cold coffee or orange juice.

Cosenza by night

A KEY INGREDIENT: FIG HONEY

The fig honey is a 100% natural condiment, obtained by boiling figs, and still made today, following the ancient Cosenza recipe, through a long manual process that involves the use only of Cosenza DOP figs and water, without addition of preservatives, dyes or thickeners. The yield is very low considering that around 25kg of figs are needed to obtain 7 litres.

Specifically, the figs are boiled in water for more than 12 hours after which they are pressed, process which takes place in the press, the extract obtained is then brought to the boil again for about 8 hours or in any case until it takes on a dark color and the characteristic smell. “The secret for a top quality honey is to use raw materials coming only from the best local crops and work them, strictly by hand, according to the ancient recipes jealously guarded only by the best producers.

Scirubetta figs honey

In addition to the preparation of the scirubetta and the typical Calabrian sweets ( turdilli , scalille , etc.), its use in the kitchen is vast. It is delicious on ice cream, cheese or fruit salad. But its flavor makes it a perfect condiment also to accompany meat and fish dishes.

It is also important to underline the therapeutic properties of this precious and sweet liquid, used since ancient times as an expectorant, to cure coughs and colds.

Scirubetta, in its enviroment