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APULICA / FRUIT, VEGETABLES AND PULSES

Toritto almond

PAT · Slow Food Presidium · Fruit, vegetables and pulses · Puglia

Apulica editorial team · Sources checked:

In brief

History and origin

In Toritto, a town inland from Bari between the pre-Murgia and the Alta Murgia, almond trees have been grown for centuries, and with them local ways of working and storing the nut have been handed down. Over time the area selected many local varieties, some with old names such as Piscalze and Luisi.

The two cultivars that now give the Toritto almond its name are named after two townspeople. Antonio De Vito arose in the early nineteenth century in the Parchitello district, also called «Benefici» in memory of the church estates there. Filippo Cea is more recent: it dates from the early twentieth century and takes its name from the farm of Filippo Cea, born in 1858.

As early as 1939 a book on Apulian almond varieties described both as long established in the area and singled out Filippo Cea as excellent for confectionery. Today the Toritto almond is a Slow Food Presidium and is listed among the traditional food products of Puglia.

Sources: Atlante dei PAT di Puglia (Regione Puglia, Università di Bari) — Mandorla di Toritto · Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Mandorla di Toritto · Masaf — Elenco nazionale dei prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali, XXVI revisione (2026)

Area and method of production

The Toritto almond is at least 70% Filippo Cea, up to 20% Antonio De Vito and the rest other cultivars. The trees are grown without irrigation, with occasional emergency watering only for young plantings, both in dedicated orchards and alongside olive trees.

In the old orchards the trees stand in irregular rows and are trained as open vases; in new plantings they are spaced five or six metres apart. Harvesting is by hand or with tree shakers and, depending on the cultivar, runs from late August to early October.

Once the green husk is removed, and sometimes the shell and skin too, the almonds are spread in the sun on nets or cloths to dry. Shelled and peeled, they are kept in cool, dry places in jute sacks or in containers of natural materials such as terracotta, stone or glass.

Sources: Atlante dei PAT di Puglia (Regione Puglia, Università di Bari) — Mandorla di Toritto · Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Mandorla di Toritto

How to recognise it

The Filippo Cea kernel is sweet, symmetrical and medium-sized, with a rough dark-ochre skin and a tiny rounded tip. About seven nuts in ten hold a single kernel and empty kernels are almost unknown; the shelled yield is around 35%. It is an almond rich in oil, with an intense, buttery taste.

Antonio De Vito has a sweet, large, flattened kernel, rectangular or oval, with a light-ochre skin that is rough and lined and a tip pointing downwards. Its shelled yield is a little lower, about 28%, again with very few empty kernels.

The two can be told apart at a glance: Filippo Cea is more regular and darker, Antonio De Vito broader, flatter and paler.

Sources: Atlante dei PAT di Puglia (Regione Puglia, Università di Bari) — Mandorla di Toritto · Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Mandorla di Toritto

In the kitchen

Thanks to its aroma, Filippo Cea has always been the pastry almond: it is widely used for almond milk and for sweets of every kind, to which it gives a widely appreciated flavour. Several local sweets were born from this very variety and are increasingly sought after.

The 1939 description already called it excellent for kernels meant for confectionery and flours, and the richness in oil and buttery flavour noted by the Presidium explain why it remains the pastry cooks' favourite.

Cooks start from nuts dried in the sun after the harvest which, once shelled and sometimes peeled, are kept cool and dry in jute or in terracotta and glass jars: the same care with which the Toritto almond has been handed down for generations.

Sources: Atlante dei PAT di Puglia (Regione Puglia, Università di Bari) — Mandorla di Toritto · Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Mandorla di Toritto

Where to taste it

The place to discover it is Toritto itself. The bond between the town and its almond shows in its streets: via Ettore D'Urso, one of the main streets of the old centre, has very wide pavements, made for spreading shelled almonds in the sun. The farmhouses of the area, some from the seventeenth century, also have stone rooms for working and storing them and threshing floors for drying them.

The town holds an almond festival in autumn or early winter. Within the municipality, near the rural hamlet of Quasano, the Alta Murgia National Park begins, and the surrounding countryside keeps the farmhouses and unirrigated almond groves described by the regional Atlas.

Toritto is a short distance from Bari and Altamura: visitors to the Alta Murgia or the regional capital can stop here at the end of summer, when the almonds are harvested and dried.

Sources: Atlante dei PAT di Puglia (Regione Puglia, Università di Bari) — Mandorla di Toritto

Protection

When

Where

Puglia