APULICA / FRUIT, VEGETABLES AND PULSES
Pertosa white artichoke
Slow Food Presidium · Fruit, vegetables and pulses · Campania
In brief
- It is grown in Pertosa, Auletta, Caggiano and Salvitelle, in the lower Tanagro valley in the province of Salerno, at 300-700 m. (Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Carciofo bianco di Pertosa)
- It is a very pale, almost silvery green artichoke, large, round and spineless, with a hole at the top. (Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Carciofo bianco di Pertosa)
- It tolerates cold and has sweet, tender inner bracts, good for eating raw; it is also preserved in oil. (Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Carciofo bianco di Pertosa)
History and origin
Pertosa is a small village about seventy kilometres south of Salerno, best known for its caves: karst cavities inhabited since the Stone Age, stretching for more than two and a half kilometres through galleries, stalactites and navigable streams, inside the Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park.
Together with the neighbouring villages of Auletta, Caggiano and Salvitelle, Pertosa also keeps an unusual artichoke, the Bianco di Pertosa, also called the white artichoke of the Tanagro after the river that runs through the valley. Its name comes from the very pale colour of its bracts.
For a long time it was grown on small plots, often at the edge of fields and for family use, alternating with olive trees. The Slow Food Presidium was set up to find it a market again, starting with the area's restaurants.
Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Carciofo bianco di Pertosa · Regione Campania — Prodotti tradizionali: Carciofo bianco del Tanagro
Area and method of production
The Presidium covers the municipalities of Auletta, Caggiano, Pertosa and Salvitelle, in the lower Tanagro valley, province of Salerno, between 300 and 700 metres above sea level. The Campania Region's sheet describes a wider area along the Tanagro, from Palomonte and Sicignano degli Alburni down to Sala Consilina, Sassano and Padula, mostly on clay and sandy soils.
The fields are small, often just a few hundred square metres. Many shoots are left on each plant, up to seven, to obtain more heads; cultivation follows the traditional method and, according to the Presidium, uses no chemical treatments or fertilisers.
It is a late ecotype: harvesting begins between mid-April and early May, depending on the season, and continues until the end of May.
Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Carciofo bianco di Pertosa · Regione Campania — Prodotti tradizionali: Carciofo bianco del Tanagro
How to recognise it
The Bianco di Pertosa has no thorns. The heads are large, round and globular, with a characteristic hole at the top; the main ones, slightly elongated, are called mammarelle and measure on average seven centimetres in height and the same in diameter.
Its colour is its signature: a soft green, almost silvery white. The receptacle is very pale too, and the inner choke forms slowly, a sign of low fibrousness.
It stands up well to cold and has particularly sweet, delicate inner bracts, so it lends itself to being eaten raw. The plant grows semi-upright and reaches on average 85 centimetres in height.
Sources: Regione Campania — Prodotti tradizionali: Carciofo bianco del Tanagro · Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Carciofo bianco di Pertosa
In the kitchen
The tenderness of the inner bracts makes it ideal raw, for example as pinzimonio with the area's extra virgin olive oil: a pairing that brings together the two farming vocations of the land, small artichoke fields and olive groves.
It is also excellent preserved in oil. In Pertosa some producers put up the small artichokes in Colline Salernitane PDO extra virgin olive oil, so they can be enjoyed out of season too.
These simple uses, tied to the vegetable garden and to olive oil, belong to the food practices that the Cilento, Vallo di Diano and Alburni National Park recognises in the Mediterranean Diet, inscribed by UNESCO in 2010 as intangible cultural heritage.
Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Carciofo bianco di Pertosa · Parco Nazionale del Cilento, Vallo di Diano e Alburni — Dieta Mediterranea
Where to taste it
Look for the artichoke in spring in the villages of the lower Tanagro: Pertosa, Auletta, Caggiano and Salvitelle. Production is small and largely family-scale, and the Presidium is relying on local restaurants to make it known.
A visit to the Pertosa caves, among the most striking places in the Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park, is the natural occasion to discover it, perhaps together with the small artichokes preserved in oil in the village.
From here the journey can continue towards the Cilento, where, from 1944 in Pollica, Ancel and Margaret Keys studied the eating habits they would later name the Mediterranean Diet. The park still safeguards its practices, from growing food to sharing it.
Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Carciofo bianco di Pertosa · Parco Nazionale del Cilento, Vallo di Diano e Alburni — Dieta Mediterranea
Protection
- Slow Food Presidium — carciofo-bianco-di-pertosa (Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Carciofo bianco di Pertosa)
When
- Harvest: April–May (Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Carciofo bianco di Pertosa)
- Spring