Winter Trailer

Coming soon to our neighbourhood

December sunrise view

Coming Home

 Autumn Clearing

After some weeks' absence we return to a changed scene: although according to the calendar it is still strictly autumn, it is picturesque autumn no longer: rain, wind and lack of sunlight have drained the colour from the land. Nature is resting. 

the bronze and copper leaves of the hortensia quercifolia, a gift of autumn

Yet the garden is greener, bushier, leggier than when we left. And since our return the sun has been shining every day, which makes for tingling, beaming mornings in which to work outside.

Autumn in the Campi di Sotto at Le Ripe

Quiet Prospects

a handsome hawthorn tree in berry

 Clearing the lower meadows at Le Ripe is a yearly job, as described in 2013. It keeps the brambles and bamboo down, encourages grass and makes for pleasant walks. 

Autumn Great and Small

Zoom out and zoom in on those once-in-a-year colours

 

Olive Oil 3

The sad tale of the 2014 olive débacle

Absent from Tuscany for a while, I nevertheless felt drawn to report from afar on this year's disastrous olive harvest. Trawling the internet for information I came across a site which says everything I would have liked to say. 

I can think of nothing more suitable than to alert readers to this page written by someone who has experienced the debacle in first person. The olives on our 18 trees were equally horrid this year, but we don't harvest them for oil. Yet we are equally affected: this year good local oil will be impossible to come by. 

And there is more bad news in 2015: Xylella fastidiosa

For more upbeat posts on olive oil, see my Olive Oil 1 and Olive Oil 2

We now have to hope for a good, cold winter and a dry summer for the 2015 harvest

 

Fruit of the Month: the persimmon

Ripeness is All

 

Of the genus diospyros, family Ebenaceae - which is the family of the ebony tree - the most widely consumed is the Asian persimmon Diospyros kaki. Diospyros comes from Greek, meaning divine fruit or literally, 'wheat of Zeus' otherwise translated as 'Jove's fire' or 'God's pear'. In modern Greek it is called lotos and associated with the food of the lotus-eaters in the Odyssey, although there are multiple candidates for this honour. Interestingly, it has several names in Italian: loto in the south, diosporo in central Italy, cachi or kaki in the north.

The pretty word 'persimmon' comes from Native American Algonquian pessamin, strangely meaning dry fruit. I wonder if this refers to the persimmon's astringency when under-ripe, which leaves the mouth chalky-dry, thanks to the fruit's high levels of tannins. To custom-ripen or 'blet' in the home, store the persimmons in a pot with some apples, pears or bananas which exude the ethylene needed for ripening. Alternatively, persimmons can be ripened through freezing.

Autumn morning

looking towards Radda around 7am

 the garden a few minutes later

the Thorn Tree and its associations

 The Facts and Fables of the Hawthorn

the hawthorn in September

Summer has all but ended. We still await the equinox to declare it officially over, but autumn is clearly making itself felt. A series of heavy rainfalls have seemingly washed the green from the landscape which is now tinged with yellow, the cooler temperatures and shorter days reminding us of what's to come. Our fig trees are laden, the quinces are heavy on the bough and bright berries glow on hedge and shrub (above deer height, for the lower fruits have been devoured).

the berries or 'haws' are really pomes which contain stones like those in plums

I was admiring the scarlet berries of the hawthorn today and it occurred to me that I have not done this tree/shrub justice in my recent post on trees at Le Ripe. This is a tree with a story, or rather many stories. 

Olive Oil 2

Fruit of the Month: the Olive
or
The Olive Harvest 2013

Recently (January 2014) a horrifying animated chart appeared in the New York Times exposing (not for the first time) olive oil fraud. This should make us appreciate the small producers more and understand that their prices are high for a good reason. And here is an excellent blog by Tom Mueller which covers the subject of olive oil and oil fraud very well.

For more on olive oil please see last year's post as well.

 

I was unable to participate in the olive harvest this year as planned, but a friend who took part for the first time has provided some photos and a couple of excellent short films to give an idea of how things are done nowadays in Chianti.

This year rain was a problem: it held up the harvest from one day to the next. But in the end everyone managed to make their oil.

Fruit of the Month: the quince

The Quintessential Quince

one of our two quince trees

October is the month of the quince. At least it is at Le Ripe where the overall success rate in our orchard is somewhat limited: quinces abound this year but there is nary an apple.

quinces are very attractive but I store them on windowsills also to ripen them and to enjoy their lovely aroma

On the Way Home

The Flaming Cypress

A crimson glory vine (vitis coignetiae) sets fire to a solitary cypress.

Admired each year in October on the SP 76 between La Piazza and Molin Nuovo, Comune of Castellina in Chianti.

Change of Season

Autumn is icumen in

Time to bring in the tender pot plants, the gardenia, dipladenia (mandevilla), azalea, hibiscus, tiny cacti, cyclamen, gerbera and amaryllis. With temperatures at night going below 10 degrees, now is the time to protect these plants. Our two citrus trees (lemon and cumquat) will also be hauled to shelter.

So goodbye to the little crowd of pots under the fig tree opposite our front door and hello greenhouse vegetation indoors...

Olive Oil 1

Liquid Gold

for more on olive oil see the 2013 post
from December

How could I forget a post about olive oil? It arrived in late November and early December and here we are in late January.

I don't like to think we're starting to take it for granted, but after five years of living in Chianti we certainly assume it's a natural part of life.

newly-arrived oil at its cloudy best - and full of bite

 When fresh, the oil is cloudy, a most wonderful golden green and with a particular, peppery bite. For oil conoscitori the bite is the thing.

oil today, starting to settle and mellow

The best way to store it is in a dark container or failing that, a dark pantry. The green bottles are best for daily use. The friends we acquire our oil from use either bottles or tins. Note the special spout on the green bottle; it helps regulate the flow and save precious drops.

the proof of the pudding...

 The true colour has not been well-reproduced in this shot: it's much greener in reality. This is 'la morte sua'* as they say here: poured on Tuscan (unsalted) bread and eaten fresh, maybe with a sprinkle of salt. Needless to say we do not use this oil for cooking, just raw.

*'Its proper death.'

Interesting article on the quality of olive oil from the New York Times of April 18th 2013: World's Olive Oils 

Which has prompted some sound advice from a friend who grows her own olives and makes her own oil in the heart of Chianti not far from Panzano:

Olives should be half green, half dark but better to harvest them a little early for flavour and sacrifice a little on percentage yield.  The gist of the NYT article on filtering is largely correct.  Many oils are processed in dirty conditions and stored incorrectly. For the small producer, it's important to eliminate the sludge by transferring the oil to clean containers a few months after pressing. Those not in the know and many large scale producers who sell their oil immediately do not transfer the oil to clean containers and/or filter.  If the oil sits on the shelf for too long or is inappropriately stored (too much heat and dirt, for instance), the quality will deteriorate quickly..  If I were buying oil retail, yes, I would look for the words " filtered" as well as "extra virgin" and where and date bottled. 

The best oil comes from the small producer who cares about the trees, harvests with minimal damage to the olives, presses the olives quickly at a spotless, cold press frantoio, cleans his containers thoroughly, and transfers his oil into newly clean containers after six months. Filtering eliminates dirt and, therefore, helps.  Even some of the vaunted producers that sell oil in the U.S. at DOCG prices cannot even approach the small producers here in quality.  The best oil is local, and it does not leave the area because those who care about it consume it. 
 
Never buy oil from commercial producers if possible. It's not worth saving the money, and the industry is notoriously corrupt (a friend worked for a commercial producer and has witnessed trucks unload other oleaginous substances and colouring agents for blending at the factory).
 

Speaking of precious drops

We once visited a museum of peasant culture in Bassa Campania, southern Italy, in a tiny, forgotten hill village called Ortodonico. The enthusiastic museum curator was full of information and stories about the life and work of his ancestors. 

One story he told has since been corroborated by the sons of other peasants, even in our part of the country. Since time immemorial the fattore, or farm manager and the padrone, or owner (usually a noble of some sort) were the only ones to oversee the pressing of the olive oil.

In recent decades, since the tenant farmer system (mezzadria) was abolished and the nobles gradually sold off their estates, it was discovered that underneath the olive press was a tiny channel, carved beneath the stone or brick paving which fed directly into the owner's own supply of oil. In other words the owner was stealing a proportion of the common oil shared 50/50, in theory, with the peasant in payment for his labours.  

Extraordinary but true. If a peasant had been found doing any such thing he would have been banished from the property (cf. Ermanno Olmi's 'Tree of the Wooden Clogs'), if not worse.

Images from the museum of peasant culture in Ortodonico: Ortodonico museum
And for those who can follow the Italian, here is an excerpt on YouTube from a film dealing with this very issue, filmed in the museum itself: Noi Credevamo film clip

Olive Harvest

our olive harvest

only four trees of eighteen had fruit

- we shall add to our neighbours' haul and imagine that our olives 

gave a small but important contribution to their oil

- they have 700 trees and it took them one month 

to harvest

- it took me 10 minutes

Olives for Oil

Olive harvest

This year's olives. Our friends who actually make oil from their own olives tell me that it has been an excellent year. There were few olives: perhaps as a consequence, the oil is very good. 
I can't wait to try it. 

Meanwhile, I admire our own shiny black olives. I shall gather them and maybe they will contribute to our neighbours' oil. They are good only for oil: we cannot preserve them for antipasti.

Brilliance

Looking on the bright side....

we also came back to this.

Although we missed most of the autumn colours,

 the virginia creeper is still looking brilliant...

Nahema Roses

It is the 25th of October and there was this beauty in the garden. 

Or rather, in the vegie patch, since the roses have had to take refuge there from the deer. 

They are mostly Nahema with its glorious lemon-apricot perfume. I rarely pick the roses, but it is the end of the season and it may soon rain and spoil them...
Such a joy.

Boring Boars

 Grubbing around

They're at it again. The first sign is holes in the grass or furrows in the earth, but this year they've outdone themselves. They have re-ploughed stretches of our neighbours' lawn, re-dug the water channel along our road and excavated the river banks. 

The wild boar are in a feeding frenzy. It must be grubs and roots they're after. They've dug virtual ditches along the road and tossed earth all over the place.

Not my own photo: thank-you internet!

We live alongside the wild boar. They're not native to Chianti, but then neither are we. Introduced from game reserves and then crossed with a Hungarian variety, they are huge. Trundling around in the woods in their family groups (mothers and piglets) looking for food, they don't bother us. I've learnt to recognise the cracking and rustling of their passage through the undergrowth, but hardly ever see them. 

In summer when the wild plums ripen it's fun to go out at night and hear them crunching up the plums, stones and all. In autumn they hoover up berries, tubers, grubs. In winter they thrive on acorns and chestnuts. 

When we first arrived at Le Ripe we had the future orchard ploughed, in a manner of speaking, by the builder's digger. Then we sowed beans and peas to enrich the earth. I only hope they had time to enrich the earth because no sooner did the peapods sprout, the plants disappeared. I actually spied the Sus Scrofa family enjoying its picnic of tender peas. What a treat!

Quinces

First signs
Autumn has come to the hills, very gently. The first signs are wisps of mist, dew on grass and leaves in the early morning, colours starting to turn. When I passed the orchard this morning I noticed the branches of the quince tree bending low. The quinces were large and heavy, pleading to be harvested. 


Although they are not quite 
ripe, they can be kept on a windowsill inside to ripen slowly and perfume the room. The ones that were addled I cut and cooked with a little sugar into a thick puree which will be preserved in jars to eat with cheese, roasted meat and Greek yogurt...


The quince is a fascinating fruit, with a venerable ancestry. It originated in Asia Minor and was brought to Europe by the Greeks and Romans and was cultivated in medieval gardens. Quince comfits, cubes of sweet quince paste, are still made and eaten in southern Europe to this day. When my husband went to school in Naples, his mother often gave him quince comfits, or cotognata for a treat. A far cry from a Mars bar!

Fabulous Figs

A little seasonal bounty

It's the figs I want to talk about. We have several good trees but luckily the best one is near the house. Its figs mature in September, are greenish yellow without and mostly deep, glistening red within. When they are ripe it's like eating jam. This year the other trees bore little fruit, possibly because the summer was so dry. But since I water around the house tree in any case, its crop was abundant this year as well. Every other day you can be sure of a basketful.

In good years we don't know what to do with them all. This year, and thanks to a series of house-guests, they have all been eaten fresh from the tree. Last year I made fig jam (you need very little sugar) and bottled the puree, without sugar, for eating with cheese and meats:very good! Single peeled figs wrapped in a thin leaf of prosciutto crudo is a very delicious appetizer; quartered but left to stand on a bed of leaves with pieces of fresh pecorino (sheep's milk) cheese and a little thyme, some honey drizzled on top, is another lovely way to go, taught me by an Australian friend who visited recently.

In the past, I am told, the bottom of the burgeoning figs would be painted with a little donkey urine to keep away insects and blight; although our figs receive no such treatment we still cut off the base before eating. I'm not sure if it's because there might be insects, or because we're worried someone might have treated them on the sly!

The Italians have an elegant way of eating figs: since they generally avoid eating the skin, they hold the fig by its stem, cut through the base to divide the fruit almost in quarters; the result is an opening flower. They then bite off each quarter, peeling it off the skin as they go. The skin is discarded.