Avocados: A New Staple of Sicilian Cuisine?
by Brian Alcamo
When you hear the words “mangoes,” “avocados,” and “bananas,” what places come to mind? Costa Rica, with its lush rainforests capable of watering these thirsty fruits? Mexico, where avocados originate? Or even Florida, where plentiful year-round rainfall and high temperatures keep vegetation quenched and satisfied? All of these places are good first thoughts, but there’s another place that climate change has transformed into a new growing zone for these tropical treats: Sicily.
In recent years, Sicily and the rest of Southern Europe have been forced to acclimate to increasingly hot summers. While Sicily has always been prone to high temperatures and scorching hot summers, the thermometer has recently been reading higher than most people can bear. In fact, the island may have just recorded the hottest temperature in Europe ever.
In Floridia, a town near the ancient Sicilian city of Siracusa, a weather monitoring station registered a temperature of 119.84 degrees Fahrenheit (nearly 49 degrees Celsius) on Thursday, August 12th. Not only was the day a sure-fire sweat fest, people in the town reportedly felt sick from the heat.
Floridia isn’t the only city in Italy to experience these blisteringly high temperatures. All of Italy has been engulfed in a scorching summer swelter for the past few weeks, with places further south suffering the worst effects. Not only are they uncomfortable, but these increasingly common heat waves are also not-so-slowly reshaping the Italian agricultural ecosystem.
Workers in the agricultural sector have a particularly up-close vantage point for observing how climate change will impact our diets. Floridia’s iconic snail farms have been ruined by the heat, with their livestock being practically cooked before shipping. Citrus groves aren’t faring too well, either. In response to the recent destruction, some farmers have begun planting tropical fruits that are more adept at surviving through high temperatures.
One farmer, Andrea Passasini, replaced his grandfather’s vineyard, which overlooks Sicily’s Mount Etna, with an avocado grove. “Avocados?” you may ask. Yes, the fruit indigenous to Mesoamerica has finally made its way to Europe. While various crops from the Americas moved over to Europe during the centuries-long event known as the Columbian Exchange, the avocado is a newcomer in the game.
Passasini’s farm is located in Giarre, where he has identified a microclimate perfectly suited for tropical fruits. This new climate zone makes growing tropical fruit all the easier, with new growing locations for avocados and mangoes springing up all the time. He produces roughly 1.4 tons of avocados per year, and his success has encouraged other Sicilian farmers to do the same. In addition to growing avocados, Passasini also grows passion fruit, and he thankfully continues to care for decades-old lemon trees.
Vocabulary to Follow Along With Italian Agricultural Happenings
L’agricoltura - Agriculture
Tropicale - Tropical
Prodotti agricoli - Produce
Contadino, agricoltore - Farmer
Cambiamento climatico - Climate change
While a few farmers such as Passasini have benefited from the change in growing zones, the shift has spelled economic disaster for others. Some farmers see this shift as an opportunity, taking advantage of new growth patterns, while those who haven’t changed their tune have unfortunately gone out of business in recent years. Even farmers trying to adapt to new climates have struggled to keep up with increasingly erratic weather patterns. Extreme weather events including hail, heatwaves, and tornadoes have made any kind of agriculture less predictable, regardless of whether the crops in question can withstand the new temperatures. Sicily’s already short winter which used to arrive in late December is now more of a February event. Ettore Prandini, the president of Coldiretti, the Italian farmers’ union, notes that every year brings longer-lasting episodes of sky-high temperatures and tropical weather patterns.
In general, the Mediterranean basin is poised to suffer dramatically from climate change, with countries in both Southern Europe and Northern Africa gearing up for a drastic decline in rainfall. This creates an agricultural conundrum, whereby high temperatures encourage the growth of tropical fruits and vegetables but falling rain estimates prevent their need for lots of water. If Sicilian farmers want to succeed in the future, they’ll have to invest in large irrigation efforts.
Forget the future. Italy’s agricultural regions have already undergone major shifts. Mangoes, avocados, and bananas coexist amongst oranges and lemons in Sicily, and olive trees now thrive in the once-frigid Alpine valleys up North in Lombardy. Particularly sensitive to temperature changes are wine grapes, with the crops being seen as a sort of whistleblower to changes on the whole. Research has shown that a 2 degree C rise in temperature would cause 56 percent of the world’s wine regions to become unusable. This also means that some regions, like Canada’s Niagara Peninsula, have recently been able to step up their viticulture game. Grapes can no longer thrive in the way they need to for sustaining a business. Further up Mount Etna, temperatures drop low enough to continue growing them… for now.
While it may seem strange to some to bring a crop across hemispheres, blockbuster knockouts such as “Tomato” and “Potato” have their original roots in the Americas as well. Imagine Italian food without pomodori or patate, it’d be stange, wouldn’t it? Imagine a future where avocados and mangoes are staples of Italian cuisine, it sounds improbable, but could very well be the case. Sure enough, we bet someday soon restaurants will be serving delicious avocado pestos that they’ll claim to have invented. Imagine what avocado could bring to Italian cuisine. Soon, you’ll be able to say “wow, this Italian mango is delicious!”
Learning Italian will help you navigate these changes with ease so you can stay on top of all the newest and best Italian food products. While climate change is nothing to smile about, at least a few Italian farmers are trying to innovate and thrive with the conditions that they’re facing. Out with the old, in with the new. When life gives you avocados, make toast!
Thanks for Reading!
Excited about the idea of mango-infused Italian dishes? Scared about the perils of climate change? A little bit of both? Comment your thoughts below, and be sure to share this post with a friend!