4/23: A Day in the Life of a Salinan Farm Family

 We hopped on another hydrofoil to visit the neighboring island of Salina, and then took a van to the farm. The father, Aldo, has lived here all his life and bought his parents' house from them. They raise chickens and farm grapes mostly for wine, fruits like peaches, and capers and probably a lot more. The farm seems pretty big and overwhelming. Aldo and his brother do all the work on the farm with the exception of harvesting some of the grapes. Some of the wine grapes are sold to other parties and those people are responsible for the harvest.

Additionally, farming is a a tough way to survive and Aldo's family has added agritourism to their farming business to supplement their income.

There is no natural water source on these volcanic islands other than rain, so cisterns with catchment systems and purchased water are the only sources. As a result, it is unusual to see what we would consider typical farm animals like cows, sheep, goats, and pigs. Chickens are popular and we actually saw one goat today on a nearby farm.

The concept of the Day in the Life program is to give us a chance to experience what a typical local resident does for living. Two of our group helped prepare our lunch and the rest of us went out into the fields. We started by pruning a few rows of wine grapes of the unnecessary branches. Then we learned how capers are harvested and made into the tasty stuff we eat. We collected eggs and picked fava beans before we got to relax and enjoy lunch.

Annunziata took some photos of us at work, but I will have to post them separately after we get them.

This greeted us as we got off the boat.
It is the back of the display.

This is the front. It is from an Italian movie, the Postman
apparently starring a local guy. I think in the movie, he
delivered mail on his bike.

 

 

 

The view from the porch of the agritourism facility.

Itty bitty future grapes

The vineyard I helped prune.

There are two kinds of capers: the ones we see in stores in the US that are actually the immature flowers of the caper plants. If the flower is allowed to bloom, it produces a fruit from the center of the flower called a caper berry in English and cucunci in Sicilian. The capers are picked into a bag tied around the waist and the spread out on a table to dry before salting. Capers are turned every day because they exude water from the salting and turning them keeps them from getting moldy. The berries are processed much the same except they are turned every third day because they don't have as much water in them.

Capers in salt

Caper berries in salt

The caper bushes are severely pruned in the spring. Once
the flower buds begin to appear, they are harvested
weekly. The plants can easily get to be 6 feet across.

This is a caper flower. One of the stamens is actually
the caper berry...very tiny at this point.

Above and below: Aldo pulled a caper apart to show
us the flower inside.

Aldo (left) and his brother (ages 74 and 77 respectively)

Aldo's home

The hens

The rooster. There used to be 4 of them but the toughest
eliminated the competition.

We walked back down toward the house and 6 or 7 of us picked a couple baskets of fava beans before  lunch. We had a salad made from a dried bread that looked like a huge bagel cut in half like for toasting. That was broken into pieces and combined with olive oil, capers, olives, sun-dried tomatoes, a bit of red onion and lettuce and maybe some small baked garlic cloves. That was followed by a spaghetti with a sauce of olive oil and fennel 'leaves'. There was also a poached egg dish that was kind of a light veggie broth that the eggs were poached in. It looked good, but I was already pretty full. Dessert was a pumpkin dish: Mashed pumpkin mixed with a cake yeast, and then with sugar and flour added. No careful measurements here! Three heaping spoons of sugar and flour added in stages until it was the right consistency. After it had had a few hours to rise, it was scooped onto a spoon and dropped in hot oil until it was a dark golden color. They were lightly drained and rolled in a bowl with cinnamon sugar. It was all delicious!

The cooking stage of the pumpkin dessert.

With our full tummies, we had to hustle up the hill to the van to go back and catch the ferry home. I think we were the last people on the boat before they left! 

Tomorrow is another early day --- we pack our luggage and take a ferry to the mainland to continue the tour. The taxi for our luggage and ride to the harbor leaves at 5:50AM.