Noci Americane … a Nutty Tale 🌳

Autumn, or as my followers across the pond in the United States call it “Fall”, is harvest time, in Sicily this means there are many food festivals with some honouring the islands nut produce such as pistachios, chestnuts, walnuts and hazelnuts.

Every year in September into October the Sagra della Noce (Festival of Walnuts) takes place in Motta Camastra, a small hilltop town in the stunning Alcantara Valley not far from our town Giardini Naxos. This town is renowned for its walnut trees and is known as "the village of walnuts". During the festival, on stands on the streets of the town, we can taste all things nutty, like sweets, liqueurs, creams, walnut oil and of course buy big bags full of what I think are the best walnuts in the world.

Sicily is also home to the world’s most famous variety of pistachio, the pistachio Verde di Bronte (Green Pistachio of Bronte). Centred around the town of Bronte, which sits under the shadows on Mount Etna, the pistachio trees grow across some 3,000 hectares (7,400 acres) on the slopes of Etna. The pistachios of Bronte are so precious that they need police protection to stop people stealing them. The Bronte pistachio harvest is every two years and is done in odd years and there is a festival dedicated to pistachios in Bronte in Autumn where as with the walnut festival we can taste and savour products made with this delightful fruit.

Just outside Sant’ Alfio, a small town on Mount Etna, you will find "Il Castagno dei Cento Cavalli" (Tree of One Hundred Horses). Legend says that Queen Joanna of Anjou with her one hundred knights took shelter beneath the impressive canopy of this ancient chestnut tree. According to scientific research, it could well be the oldest chestnut tree in Europe, and the largest in the world. This ancient trees sweet chestnuts are very tasty.

You will find chestnut trees all over the lower slopes of Etna along with hazelnut trees and we can never resist stopping to collect some volcanic nuts to roast at home. If you are wondering yes there are food festivals that celebrate chestnuts and hazelnuts too.

Whilst these varieties of autumnal nuts are well known in Sicily have you ever heard of Le Noci Americane?

Me neither until this autumn 🌳🐿️

When we adopted Duke it soon become apparent that he was a dog that loved exploring, countryside walks and climbing mountains and volcanos, unlike Daisy who was more of a beach lover and girl about town who loved socialising in bars and restaurants. Daisy only had two walks per day in the morning and in the evening whereas Duke who is an active boy full of energy has a lunchtime walk as well and he loves to walk up the country lane behind our house in Giardini Naxos.

On Duke’s lunchtime walk past houses surrounded by olive orchards he loves looking for lizards along the lane, although one of the residents who lives up there swears that really he is actually looking for money not lizards. He also loves catching up with his four legged friend Oliver and his four legged girlfriend Lena who both live in homes along the route who come out into their gardens to bark “ciao” to him.

In spring on our walks up this lane we are always spoilt with an abundance of bright eye popping colourful wildflowers along the road side and I always pick some to pop into vases at home in our Sicilian house and I always pop a couple of the wild yellow daises in a small vial to put next to a photo of Daisy who gained her angel wings in Sicily in 2023.

This autumn as we walked up the lane with Duke we started noticing on the ground under a large tree something that looked like oval green pods split open with a nut inside and wondered what they were. Looking up above us we noticed a lot more of them hanging on the tree. The tree trunk is on private land behind a fence but a large majority of the branches hang over the lane. At first we thought it was a walnut tree but my curious side came out and I so took photos of the tree and the pods on its branches.

I posted the photos on my Blog’s Facebook page asking if anyone knew what they were and one of my lovely Blog followers commented that the pods looked like ones from a pecan nut tree. My lovely friend Teresa agreed and said that it could well be a pecan nut tree as there was pecan nut trees close to her house in Giardini Naxos.

So me being me I did a bit of research on Google …

“Pecan pods are the green outer husks of the pecan fruit that grow on the tree and they typically turn brown and split open when ripe. These pods protect the single seed inside which is technically a drupe not a nut. A pecan tree produces its husks in late summer and autumn and the nut shell falls to the ground once the husk splits open.”

On our next walk I scrambled to pick a “husk” off the lower branch of the tree over the fence, not a good idea with my history of falling over everything, and brought it home and we watched and waited for it to go brown and split open and then ta dahhhhh a few days later we had a newly born pecan nut shell.

My lovely friend Norma then told me that the locals call these nuts “Le Noci Americane” (The American Nuts).

Norma then told me a lovely story of how it was a tradition for her dearly departed Sicilian father in law to go to visit the Noci Americane trees close to where our friend Teresa lives and use a long stick, that he would take with him, to knock down the nuts for Christmas. During the festive season he would sit cracking open his hefty stash and hand out the pecan nuts to all his grandchildren, who were sitting around in much anticipation of being given the nuts to eat by Nonno (grandad) and he would end up with none left for himself. It is a treasured Christmas memory in the family.

Sicily has the perfect climate for pecan trees to grow and the island has already shown us the array of wonderful nuts that she can produce. Pecan trees can thrive wonderfully in Sicily due to the islands warm summers and moderate winter rainfall.

The mystery is how did a tree that is native to the United States and Mexico start growing in Sicily?

One of my theories was that maybe during the Allied Invasion of Sicily in 1943 during World War II that maybe the American troop's may have had pecan nuts as part of their food rations and that maybe they dropped nuts or the nut shells along the way which then propagated in the islands fertile volcanic terrain and grew into big lush trees.

What do you think?

Whilst researching I discovered that cultivation of pecan trees has become popular in Sicily and is already in progress in the south eastern corner of the island and also that there is a large ornamental pecan tree in the Botanical Park of Palermo which is thought to have been there since 1885. Maybe that date blows my World War II theory out the window.

Anyways back to our country lane walk …

As our autumnal weeks passed by we started finding more fallen nuts on the ground under our newly discovered pecan tree and in all we ended up with our own hefty harvest of just SEVEN pecan nuts !!!

My friends told me that the husks usually start to open and drop their shells end of November into December ready for Christmas when sadly we would be back home in London for winter. Boooooo !!!

Happy Thanksgiving

and

Thank you for reading

my short and nutty little tale

P.S. I wonder if there will ever be a pecan nut festival

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NEW Blog posts coming soon …..

Join us on a overnight stay amid the chestnut trees staying at Etna Rural Cottage, on a volcanic road trip via the medieval town of Randazzo to Bronte to experience the Pistachio Festival and join me in my Sicilian kitchen cooking a delicious autumnal dish using Etna mushrooms and Marsala Wine plus find out Why I Love Spring in Sicily!

Stay tuned !!!!!