Primavera: Fruit

I do not want you to get the wrong idea. I do not always eat like I ate for May Day. Indeed, it is with the ending of April and the beginning of May, the entrance into the end of the spring season, that my diet really seems to improve.

The agrumi of Sicily takes me through the winter months quite well. I buy huge boxes of oranges in Ribera, and eat one or two, or three or four a day. If I do not get them all eaten by the time they begin to turn, I make orange juice, then buy another large box and start all over again. Sometimes I do not even drive the ten minutes to Ribera, but find a local grower whose oranges are as good, or almost as good, and certainly as fresh. And of course there are some bananas, some of them even from Sicily, and apples and pears from the controlled atmosphere storage areas associated with the orchards up north.

And of course there is a steady influx of fresh vegatables, again, grown locally. Signs of spring include the green fava beans, the fresh green beans, finocchio (fennel), zucchini squash, cucumbers, wild mushrooms, spinach, swiss chard, and other forms of salagi. Even some early egg plant grown under plastic covers in the fields. And the types of fresh tomatoes increases, with four or five different tomato varieties becoming available, where only two took us through the rainy winter.

But then spring time comes for the fruit. First come the strawberries. Oh my, are they good. Usually, the first to appear are not local, but are grown on the plains of Marsala, about forty minutes away. If you prefer, you can get Spanish stawberries at the big supermarket, all nicely encased in plastic, and at a slightly higher price. I prefer the ortafruttica, where I know I am getting fresh. Loredonna makes sure of that.

Just when I think I have had my fill of fresh strawberries, and stawberries on cerael, and with cream, and with milk, and with ricotta, the melons from Licata begin showing up, and the nespoli (medlar), and the citreon (chedra), and the apricots, grown here in Sciacca, and peaches from the mainland. It becomes almost too much. I must remind myself to eat something besides the fruit, but it is so fresh and so good, and gives me reason to stay here.

I must admit, sometimes I am not as bright as perhaps I should be, but the owners of the store where I get almost all of my veggies are always very good at telling me when something is not local, as they know that I want to eat as close to the source as possible. Usually, if he does not know the contadini who grew the produce, he does know someone who does. He goes to the big market everyday in his truck, and picks out the best for his shop. He also picks out the best for his brother's shop, and his sister in law's shop, and sometimes, when his brother in law has gotten something special in his stall at the big market, he will get first dibs, and I can count on Lilo and Loredonna to hold some of whatever it is for me, and they will even tell me how to prepare it, if it is not obvious.