Bergamot: Our quality brand

7.02.2019

SMAF Associates LTD operates in the Bergamot sector as a national and international “Supplier”. Our activity towards the Bergamot starts from a long experience in the agricultural products market, in the buying, selling, import-export, logistics, sea-to-sea and land transport, insurance and customs issues. We also sell the Calabrian BERGAMOT DERIVATIVES: essence, debris, puree and juice.

Our quality brand protects the ORIGINAL BERGAMOT OF CALABRIA, a citrus fruit whose worldwide cultivation is concentrated mostly in Italy (about 90%), in the province of Reggio Calabria.

The presence of liaison offices in Calabria ensures us a strategic position for the supply and distribution of this good. We are the privileged interlocutor for the World of Commercial Catering and Collective Food, the HORECA sector and all the business forms that need a high level of quality about Bergamot as well as a constant and customized quality standard.

Boxes, ready to be loaded on the pallet

From our photos in this post, you can clearly understand how our quality brand offers the best fruit, coming from the real bergamot cultivation as rooted on the Ionian coast of Reggio Calabria, in the area from Villa San Giovanni to Gioiosa Jonica, on an area of about 1500 hectares, with a cultivation that makes 20,000 tons of fruit with an average of 100,000 kg. of essential oil.

In this place, Bergamot is mainly cultivated in alluvial and clayey limestone fields, where a greater yield of essential oil is obtained. The best fields are those located in hilly areas not subject to frost and exposed to good sun-lighting. In fact, bergamot is very sensitive to thermal swings and can be damaged if the temperature drops below 3 ° C or rises too much; it also needs frequent irrigation.

CULTIVARS GUARANTEED BY OUR BRAND

Of the bergamot are known three cultivars (typologies):

Castagnaro: The fruit is glossy, medium-thick peel. The fruit harvest begins in November. The tree is good height and has large leaves with a lanceolate geometry.

Feminine: The fruit is spherical with a thin skin. The fruit harvest begins at the end of October and the tree grows quickly but with little height. It is a plant little long but premature and has medium growth leaves with a lanceolate geometry.

Fantastic: The fruit is globe shaped, the plant has good height, it is rustic and has larger leaves than other cultivars. Harvesting of fruits takes place in November-December.

TECHNICAL USE

Use in cosmetics: Bergamot has a delicate and persistent aroma, which is an excellent scent even by itself.

Nobody could imagine that our perfumes come from these boxes

Nevertheless, along with other citrus essential oils it contributes to fix the bouquet of perfumes by transmitting to cosmetics an indefinable sweetness and exquisite freshness.

It is well-known that essential bergamot oil, thanks to its freshness, is the basic ingredient not only of classic Cologne water but also of many other delicate perfumery products, compositions such as “Chypres” and “Fougères”, of modern basis of fantasy, cosmetics and soaps, etc.; to scent soaps it must be used with caution given its low stability with alkalis.

Other aromatic uses: Bergamot derived pectins can be used for jams or, conversely, for aromatizing tobacco pipes, candies, tea, etc..

In recent years, essential bergamot oil has been used with great success in suntans, thanks to the presence of photodynamic substances (furocumarine or psoralen) known for their ability to stimulate melanogenesis.

Medicinal or herbal use: Essential oil is a potent antiseptic, but unlike phenol, it is not smelly or caustic.

It is antiseptic to urinary, digestive and respiratory tracts.

The strenght of fruit

On a nutritional level, bergamot (or lemon) juice, with the weak acids contained in it (acetic, malic, citric, tartaric acids…), gives rise to the production of carbonates and carbonate alkaline (potassium and calcium above all), which in addition to promoting intestinal calcium absorption, contribute to maintaining the alkaline reserve.

NUTRACEUTICALS

Vitamines: For the vitamin C, Bl and B2, P and vitamin A and E content in juice and flavedo, bergamot can be considered a fruit with good vitamin content; therefore, it is useful in bone disorders due to altered calcium absorption, teething disorders, collagen pathologies, muscular weakness or even neuromuscular hyper-excitability, cardiac heretism, iron deficiency anaemia, hepatic congestion and various diseases with impaired vessel permeability.

The essential bergamot oil (which today is used at an average dose of 1-2 drops per day, away from meals, diluted in water or in a teaspoon of honey or in pearls) stimulates appetite and liver and pancreatic functions.

It is useful in cholecystitis, in tachycardia and arterial hypertension: it is locally useful in stomatitis, gingivitis and pharyngitis; it is an intestinal, disinfectant and astringent pesticide. It is balsamic in the respiratory tract. It acts in a tonic and antidepressant way on the psyche.

Essential oil can be used in the field of herbal medicine as an aroma therapy support, with neuro-sedative and antidepressant functions and as a adjunct to psoriasis and vitiligo therapies.

Recipes of Calabria

8.1.2019

A PLENTY OF RECIPES

Calabria is a terrain somehow ideal as location for breeding. This unique territory allows to pigs, lambs and goats to roam around. Therefore, the sun and hardy soil make for an ideal environment to grow an abundance of animals and also vegetables like tomatoes, eggplants, zucchini, mushrooms, sweet fruits and olive. Calabrian olive oil is used also to preserve all afore mentioned products.

Cured pork products give raise to a wide selection of salami, from soppresata Calabrese to capicolla. They accompany Pasta, which is eaten daily in  Calabria; the homemade version is generally made only with semolina flour and water.

Therefore, a typical recipe is, combining such ingredients, “Pasta al forno”, a traditional Calabrian dish of baked pasta dressed in homemade sauce. The latter is made with ground meat and with fresh mozzarella, salami, hard-boiled eggs and ham. The dish is widely prepared as Sunday dish. Further, inside this recipe, it normal to meet, mixed or topped, the the very famous “peperoncino”. Whether fresh, dried, whole or crushed, rarely there is a meal made without some form of this spice. Famous throughout the country and varying in heat intensity, Calabria’s chili peppers are practically a must of this cuisine.

A second recipe, using main local ingredients, is ‘Nduja, one of Calabria’s most famous and beloved foods! This soft, spreadable spicy sausage is a blend of local chili peppers, meat and salami. It is unique in Spilsby, a town in the province of Vibo Valentia, where it is made with the pork fat and lots of chili.

A third recipe is “Lagane e cicciari”. This pasta dish is made with wide noodles, chickpeas, garlic and oil.

We can mention also “Pasta ccu ri sarde”, a dish of Fresh sardines with breadcrumbs, raisins and pine nuts.

Another one is “Pasta e patate ara tijeddra”, a dish from the town of Cosenza where ingredients – pasta, potatoes, tomato sauce, cheese and breadcrumbs – are taken raw and cooked together on the stove, then put briefly in the oven to obtain a crispy crust.

“Maccheroni col ferretto” (also known as “Scilatelle”) is made from semolina durum wheat and water, using a special ‘ferretto’ a long piece of metal, to make a hole in the maccheroncini.  They are served with very rich sauces, such as beef, pork or goat ragu, or with ‘nduja.

“Licurdia” is a soup of different vegetables such as escarole, Swiss chard, asparagus or carrots. Another fundamental ingredient is the red onion of Tropea, the star of this dish, giving it flavor and sweetness. The vegetables are cooked with lard and water for a few minutes; once they have melted and turned into a cream, they are placed in a dish over slices of toasted bread, with red peppers and pecorino cheese to top it off.

From vegetables, Calabrians obtain “Ciambotta”, a dish of eggplants, tomatoes, onion and herbs, a little bit varying from city to city.

Among the more delicious Calabrian sweets, there is “Pignolata”, similar to “Struffoli” of Campany. It is a “mountain” of fried honey balls-shaped kind of sweet. Originally coming from a Sicilian recipe, Pignolata is very popular in the region, especially in the city of Reggio Calabria, during holidays like Carnevale and Christmas.

OTHER RECIPES OF CALABRIA

“Ricotta Affumicata Crotonese” is a product of upper Crotonese and town of Mammola. The recipe provides that “ricotta” is the whey that remains from the processing of milk. Once formed the ricotta is smoked for a few days, exposing it  to wood smoke, fragrant plants and chestnuts. Also “Giuncata” is a very special recipe, a cream of cheese produced in Sila and the Plain of Sybaris. The name comes from the practice of collecting the curd in cane containers, which give the cheese its unusual surface texture. It is a smooth texture, delicate, with a slightly acidic taste.

In the field of breads, we can cite “Pane di Cerchiara”, the most popular breads, coming from the town of Cerchiara, in the area of Pollino. It is cooked in furnaces and sold in every bakeries of Calabria.  “Pane di Mangone” is also quite famous, it is cooked in Mangone, a small village in the province of Cosenza, and due to its special baking method, it stays soft for days. “Sguta”, instead, is a bread neriched of raw egg, cooked in the oven and eaten either sweet or savoury. “Pitta bread” is a traditional Calabrian flatbread with a crunchy crust and a soft inside, stuffed with peppers, tomatoes and herbs, or with sausage and peppers, or with broccoli and caciocavallo cheese…the options are many, and pitta sure is a favorite during feast days and also a classic Calabria street food. Finally, “Pane del Pescatore” is a bread enriched with eggs and dried fruits, reflecting the Greek and Arabic flatbread influences.

Among the sweets, it is hard not to mention the traditional licorice of Rossano Calabro, known since 1700, or “Mostaccioli”, any sweets of Arabic origin made with honey and sweet wine. “Mostaccioli”, produced originally in Soriano Calabro, are now widespread throughout Calabria, similar to hard and dry cookies and sometimes enriched with warm must. We have to cite also “Torrone di Bagnara”, a sweet nougat, and “Gelato alla crema reggina”, a creamy pastry preparation usually consumed as gelato,  typical of the province of Reggio Calabria and with a pinkish color.