Köstliches Sizilien: Der fruchtbare Süden

About the Film

This episode of “Delicious Sicily” presents the fertile south, the Val di Noto, and discovers figs in the Bosco di Santo Pietro nature reserve on Michele and Vittoria Russo’s permaculture farm “Caudarella”.

In the town of Ramacca, Mimma Arena has a large donkey farm. The Ragusana donkey breed was threatened with extinction, but thanks to Mimma’s breeding, this Sicilian breed is now being preserved and Mimma produces very healthy donkey milk on her farm. The journey continues south through the limestone mountains of Monti Iblei. The former granary of southern Italy is now a pioneer in the cultivation of old, almost forgotten Sicilian grain varieties. The only female miller in Sicily, Vanessa Distefano, runs an old water mill in Chiaramonte Gulfi.

Further south, in the town of Modica, lives Sara Ongaro, who produces the famous dark chocolate for which Modica is known with her fair-trade cooperative “Quetzal”.

And a little further east is the late Baroque town of Noto, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, after which the fertile south was named by the Arabs: the Val di Noto. Nearby, between Noto and Avola, Fabio and Annarella Santuccio live on an organic farm. They cultivate bitter oranges, a variety that was almost forgotten. Annarella prepares pasta from carob flour.

Credits