White Almond Sicily

Mount Etna is full of mysteries and legends. The first Greek settlers named the volcano  Aetna  and thought of it as the home to  Hephaestus , god of fire, who used its flames and lava to forge Zeus’s thunderbolts. Etna is described in the book of myths as “the forge of the gods”. To the Sicilians it is known as  Mongibello  (Beautiful Mountain) a word that derives from Arabic times.  Visitors, both local and international, are instantly charmed by the volcano and visit daily to this magical part of Sicily. Since the Grand Tours started in 1680 Mount Etna was the “must see” attraction of visitors to the island and has been enjoyed by such notaries as Goethe, Byron and Maupassant, as it had already been by the Greek philosopher Empedocles and the Emperor Hadrian. This legendary area is a magnet for visitors looking for excitement and dramatic landscapes. Mount Etna is the highest volcano in Europe. It extends for approximately 1250 square km and reaches a he...

The pistachio is a member of the cashew nut family and is a small tree originating from the Middle East. The tree produces seeds that are widely consumed as food and have a distinctive green colour and unique salty sweet taste.  Pistachio trees grow best and produce the most nuts in an arid semi-desert climate with long, dry, hot summers, low humidity and cool but not freezing winters. During the growing season pistachio trees thrive on heat. Summer temperatures of 37℃ produce large quantities of the best nuts which means that Sicily is the perfect environment to grow them and with its fertile volcanic soil some say that Sicily produces the best Pistachios in the world, which are known locally as "Sicily's Green Gold". Nature decides when it is time to harvest pistachios but generally pistachios are harvested in Sicily in late August and September. The trees usually flower in March.  It is thought that pistachio trees were introduced to Europe in the 1st Century AD by the...