Country Article / Postcards
Postcard
Harvest Time in Sicily
Date: 02/08/2010
By Hilary Arnold
Dreaming of olive oil…extra virgin, tangy, and picked by your hands? Every fall in Cianciana, the air is thick with the perfume of freshly pressed Sicilian olive oil. A sweet and pungent odor that makes you want to bake bread just to go with the oil.
Initially, I kept thinking, "what’s that smell?" But now we know, and it has become a season we look forward to with anticipation. For the last two years we have had the pleasure of harvesting olives, and seen them go into the press. Voila! Within an hour there is bright green oil.
By accident, we bought a house on the same street as the olive oil press (oleificio). The funny thing is, we didn’t know. We were traveling about during the olive season that first year, and the press is silent during the rest of the year.
So imagine our pleasure at the discovery that we live only four houses down the road from a real oleificio, owned by the nicest man, Fortunato. The other advantage, as neighbors, is being able to jump up the order when we bring in our hand-picked olives, and share in the chestnuts they roast in the wood fired furnace.
It gives you a unique and tasty way into the culture. We meet so many people while in the oleificio, and share our stories, learn Italian, and pick up a few words of Sicilian. Now there are even more friends to share coffee with when out shopping. Also, they let everyone else in town know that we foreigners actually pick olives as well. Hey, this is good. This season, Fortunato’s daughter took a group photo that included us (an American and an Englishman), two Tunisians, a Belgian, and five Ciancianese. Internazionale!
And when we’re finished with our own little production? We can sit on our balcony, watching cars, olives, and tractors. They crowd in without any care of direction, the furnace smokes, and the oil continues. And we enjoy a glass of wine, and marvel at the theater, of which we’re now a part.
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