Sicily ofcourse, is the orange growing apothosis and has a variety of varieties never exported, including that of the 'arance vaniglia'.
IN fact there is little that a sicilian can't do with a citrus fruit. And one of the stranger types are include unbloody blood orange i.e an orange which looks like a sanguinello, but which isn't; red because of the lava erupting from Mt. Etna has infiltrated the soil it grew in. It was made into this very tasty fennel, onion and orange salad.
Yesterday I went for a walk with Uncle Ubaldo and family, we entered into a nearby gorge and picked and saw some cool things: wild asparagus, wild palm trees (with sweet yellow dates!) fennel, borage, sage and thyme as well as the usual fruits, nuts and carubo . It was a nice walk and a beautiful sunny day (around 20°- sorry london pals) but unfortunately, sicilians (with the exception of my company) do not have much appreciation of environment or ecology. Many beauty spots have been asphalted over, and the place where we walked although a lovely, craggy spot where the mountains and a natural spring flows into the sea -was full of electricity pylons.
Not only was it ecologically interesting, but a fine place to find million yr old fossils, as the sea had receded from this spot leaving exposed animal and shell remains in the rock.
What a pity that the same ignorance that produces the fine ricotta (see below) in combination with corruption results in such appalling visual and atmospheric pollution (Not seen)
