21/05/2024
A Day in Belice, my program for sheep’s dairy, oil, breads, greens, fruit, mushrooms and truffles. Inquire with [email protected]
Springtime (mid-March to mid-May) is touring season for anyone who really wishes to visit Sicily, alone or in a group, and see, taste, forage, etc most of the island’s bounties and beauties. Cheeses, sheep’s ricotta, freshly milled heirloom wheats and flours, breads and rusks, truffles and mushrooms, herbs, heirloom indigenous fruit… to name some foods we experience in the wild and on our palates.
In late May, it gets too hot, till early October, when it’s perfect again through mid-November to also witness and partake in the olive harvest, Castelvetrano olives curing, olive oil milling, with freshpressed olio, green and zingy, the end of the grape harvest in the vineyards and new wines.
Wild edible plants foraging is best October through April.
Here, my explaining and translating from an Italian-speaking expert to an English-speaking crowd, in the woods, on a big hill, somewhere near Sambuca di Sicilia. Aglio ursino anyone? We learned that it is much more digestible and leaves less of a redolent aftermath than regular garlic. Bulb, greens, flower and all. We only picked one plant for educational purposes as it grows with another plant whose roots are much beloved by budding truffles and we could show the mycorrhiza developing.
Here in this area of Sicily they make an antipasto omelette, a thin fried frittata, with ransom, as with many other wild foraged vegetables.
