The Calabrian olive tree, from the Bourbons until today

27.7.2019

CALABRIA: A GARDEN OF OLIVE TREES

The presence of the olive tree, this centuries-old plant that turns the Calabrian countryside of Puglia and Campania to green, has been for centuries the peculiarity of the Calabrian lands and of the entire South. Their presence in our territories is so strong that we imagine that it is spontaneous vegetation, nothing more wrong!

The olive tree for centuries needs care so that it grows luxuriant and produces its fruit.

For millennia, in fact, the work of planting the olive trees, including the harvest, involved entire Calabrian families.

A secular tree

The endless expanses of olive groves are the result of centuries of land transformation and how the Calabrians are linked to this plant. The Calabrian territory has been, at least under the botanical aspect, shaped by the wise hands of the peasants who devote themselves to this millenary activity with self-denial.

What has been said so far represents the concrete demonstration that the fruits of these natural monuments have given the Calabria Region the possibility of entering the European commercial logic since the second half of the seventeenth century, intercepting the developments and transformations of the international market.

Magic light under the olive trees

A LONG HISTORY

Starting from the mulberry tree and the renowned silk production, we arrived at the cultivation of olive trees and, finally, of citrus fruits.

Unlike what happened for the production of cereals, the cultivation of olive trees helped the territory, to guarantee greater stability to the lands oppressed by the fragile hydrogeological conditions (typical in Calabria the floods). In Calabria, or rather in Calabria, the olive-growing has spread rapidly, creating highly specialized areas, such as the areas of Gioia Tauro and Rosarno, reaching, then, up to the slopes of Aspromonte.

A strongly man-made landscape

Also on the Ionian side, in Rossano and Cirò, there has been an overwhelming rise of this plant. The production of oil grew so greatly that, in some cases, the traditional and secular Apulian supremacy was actually surpassed by Calabria (it is often said, since the end of the eighteenth century, that “when Puglia rests Calabria produces”).

THE DEVELOPMENT UNDER BOURBONS’ KINGDOM

The first strong signs of the flourishing of Calabrian olive growing were recorded Starting in 1735. The author of this renewal was King Charles III of Bourbon, who assisted by Minister Tanucci, implemented a series of reforms that renewed the Kingdom of Naples.

The Bourbons

The writer Giuseppe Maria Galanti, in one of his work (“Writings on Calabria, a meticulous investigation of the socio-economic conditions of Southern Italy between the last decade of the eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries”) wrote:

Generally olive groves are hoed and are fattened, and the use is that each owner usually keeps or uses small herds of sheep to fertilize. Where there are no sheep, fertilizers are the lupines. In Catanzaro and its contrada the use of the ancient “trappeto” [a olive press] continues. The oil is preserved either in clay pots or in tanks made of Genoa stone ”. Evidence of the very noteworthy diffusion of the olive tree is a series of documents of the time such as, in particular, notarial deeds concerning rents or restitution of olive groves or trappeti.

Modern reconstruction of an ancient trappeto

Among the many, we report that, related to the land of Cannavà, one of the most fertile and extensive in the municipality of Catanzaro; here, the Duke of Cardinale, Luciano Serra, had planted an olive grove of 2000 barrels of oil (hl. 10.460). The olive trees, of remarkable dimensions, had a yield equal to about 14 hectoliters of olives (24 tomoli)… and the closed horizon of the dark olive grove and the gloomy air of the immense plain is enlivened somewhat by the fragrance of a squared garden of about 15 hectares. The trappeti are in the village, but the pomace goes to the old trappeto to be washed, which is a building occupying 72 ares of land with millstones 10 and presses 24″.

According to some sources, at that time, the Calabrian olive oil production came alone to represent the value equal to one third of all the olive oil production of the Kingdom of Bourbons. The enormous olive oil production of Calabria is analyzed by another scholar, Grimaldi, in his “Statistical studies on the agricultural and manufacturing industry of Calabria Ultra II“, published at Borel and Bompard’s Book-typographic Establishment, Naples 1845.

A flourishing agricultural economy

Further, Grimaldi, in his “Meridional Question, studies and texts of Borzomati”, wrote:

Extended cultivation and useful to the Province is that of the olive trees: it was derelict during the decade from 1806 to 1815 so that the olive groves, in part, were destroyed, and, in part, were substituted by  many woods. Once the trade was revived, the ancient olive groves began to be taken care of, new plantations were made, and at present almost every site is progress.

Although in 14 municipalities, the olive tree is cultivated throughout the province, of which the qualities called ogliarole and rotondelle, which give abundant oil, and celline, of which less is obtained but of better quality, abound. . In general, they are not taken care of and are abandoned to themselves […].

Fertilizers are not applied to olive groves at all.  …]. Pruning is made in  winter, in some sites it is not done, in others it gets hurt […].The olive harvest is generally done when these are perfectly ripe, except for very few owners who carry it out before reaching this point. The fruit is partly harvested from the ground and the remainder on the tree is dropped by perturbing the branches. In addition to the damage that comes from the system of cutting down and collecting mature olives, there is the other that derives from keeping them before harvesting for about a month piled up and pressed in places that are often humid and low […].

Olive oil mills, commonly called trappeti, are defective. In fact, the grindstone is a hand and a half wide and with a little sharp cut, so in addition to being heavy and slow moving, it requires a lot of effort to be moved and the shredding of the olives is not well done.

Life of the village and olive-growing

The olive oil product is 19,523 barrels, that is cantaja [a certain unity of measure of that time] 107.287 and rolls [idem] 57 and 1/3, and it is little less than doubled in the last decade, since, before 1835, the average product was 10.623 barrels; the price is 55 ducats each barrel. Finally the olive groves can be considered as occupying 312.368 moggia [a land unity measure] of the territory of the province, and are mostly in the district of Catanzaro and in that of Crotone“.

It is clear that the famous Calabrian writer Grimaldi was thoroughly familiar with the situation of the Calabria countryside.

AFTER NAPOLEON

There was a phase of blockade under the Napoleon, but growth resumed in the years to come.

Napoleonic age

Calabria began to export more and more olive oil, not only in the other provinces of the Kingdom, but also and above all in the main European countries.

The Calabrian olive oil was highly sought after by the industries of Northern Europe, especially by the soap factories of Marseille and by the English textile industries.

Cloth olive oil, the olive oil for clothes, as it was called in the Anglo-Saxon lands, was intended not for food consumption, but used for processing fabrics in factories and for lubricating machinery. This is why the Calabrian landowners were not interested in the refinement or improvement of the finished product.

CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

Today, olive growing is the fundamental sector of agriculture in the region. In terms of income, it represents 25% of gross salable production.

A growing regional economy

There are more than 160,000 Calabrian olive farms. Their contribution to direct and induced employment is significant. The development of the crop is essentially linked to the resolution of technical and economic problems summarized below:

–  Restructuring of olive groves

– Conservation of part of the plants to meet environmental and landscape needs.

– Removal of old plants that are no longer profitable and replanting of new cultivars.

– Production rebalancing through the containment of the phenomenon of the alternation of the production cycle and the pest control.

– Reduction of production costs with particular reference to that of collection.

– Production of oil with low acidity and good organoleptic characteristics, that is directly edible.

Onion of Tropea: extraordinary properties

6.6.2019

A VEGETABLE   COMING FROM AN ANCIENT PAST

Nobody can forget the delicious, refined and light taste, extremely versatile and simple of “Red Onion of Tropea”.

“Capo Vaticano” bay

It was the Phoenicians and the Greeks who introduced the use of onion to Calabria, learned in turn by Assyrians (a civilization dating back to 2,500 BC) and Babylonians (dating back to approximately 1,895 BC).

You cannot be mistaken if you say that this onion is an ancient gift to Calabria of the Assyrians!!

The historic area of production in Calabria is the territory of Capo Vaticano, precisely in the Municipality of Ricadi, but the Italian name “Rossa di Tropea” connects the onion to Tropea, associating its origin with the such renowned village, because of the simple fact that shipments of onions all over the world took place from the Tropea railway station.

Tropea seaside

THE LOCATION

Initially, the transportation of the famous red onions from the fields of Ricardi to the station of Tropea, took place using donkeys or by ox-drawn carts, along paths close to the sea.

Nowadays, the expanse of the Capo Vaticano promontory that spreads towards Tropea and the nearby Parghelia is entirely characterized by extensive lush fields (larger than the initial place of origin, of Ricadi) rich of “Rossa di Tropea” crops.

Further, such crops have spread from the terraces of Monte Poro, Ricadi, long the coast from Nicotera, even until the plain of Lamezia Terme.

The onion of Tropea, which boasts the Italian protective denomination IGP since 2008 is spread all over such large territory.

If you see one of this onion, such really healthy souvenir of an ancient past (surely, Assyrian, therefore old of 4,500 years!) has a round or ovoid shape, is delicious, light, refined and crunchy.

In old cuisine of Assyrians it was a common element, a must for every dish. The crops were large all over Mesopotamia, while the importation began with Phoenicians…

An Assyrian kitchen

In short words, a magical gift of nature and history, cultivated on volcanic soils, fresh, deep, rich above all in potassium, studied by pedologists all over the world in order to trace their origins and justify the noble, particularly fertile composition, represents a real elixir of long life.

PROPERTIES

Indeed, Tropea onion prevents heart attacks and cardiovascular diseases, has antibiotic and antioxidant properties; contains “thiols”, natural organic compounds that counteract the accumulation of fat sediments in the blood, cleaning it from the lipoproteins that pollute and harden the arteries.

Further, it is indicated as a remedy for skin diseases, gives relief in case of cold and flu, tones veins and arteries.

It has a beneficial effect on diuresis and hypertension, treats intestinal infections, prevents kidney stones and pertussis, finally is diuretic.

A plenty of healty components

For all these reasons, the Tropea onion, which contains only 26 calories per 100 grams of product, is indicated in the diets of heart patients for its antisclerotic power, fighting the physical deficit due to the high content of iron and vitamins, lowering free radicals and levels of bad cholesterol in the blood.

Oncologists, further, say that its “flavonoids, phenols, quercetin and mineral salts” greatly reduce the risk of cancer of the larynx, liver, colon and ovaries, while its chromium sulphides are effective in treating diabetes, reducing blood sugar.

Oncologists, further, say that its “flavonoids, phenols, quercetin and mineral salts” greatly reduce the risk of cancer of the larynx, liver, colon and ovaries, while its chromium sulphides are effective in treating diabetes, reducing blood sugar.

GASTRONOMY

The Tropea onion is ideal for sauté, in vinegar, in mixed salads with fresh tomatoes, olives and oregano.

Further it is the main ingredient of many delicacies including “ice cream” and a very good “jam“, accompanying meat,  aged pecorino cheese, caciocavallo, “gorgonzola” (the well known creamed cheese) and omelettes in general.