APULICA / FRUIT, VEGETABLES AND PULSES
Lentiscosa maracuoccio
Slow Food Presidium · Fruit, vegetables and pulses · Campania
In brief
- A small, squarish, mottled legume related to grass pea (Lathyrus cicera), grown in Lentiscosa, a hamlet of Camerota in Cilento. (Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Maracuoccio di Lentiscosa)
- It tastes slightly bitter; its name is said to mean bitter pod. (Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Maracuoccio di Lentiscosa)
- Its flour, mixed with wheat flour, makes maracucciata, a polenta dressed with olive oil, onion, garlic and chilli. (Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Maracuoccio di Lentiscosa)
History and origin
Lentiscosa is a hilltop hamlet of Camerota, in the southern part of the Cilento National Park, and for centuries it has grown a pulse found almost nowhere else: the maracuoccio. The name reveals its character. According to the Presidium, the root «mar», of Semitic origin, means something bitter, while «cuoccio», from Latin, is the pod: a bitter pod, then.
Botanically it is Lathyrus cicera, a close relative of the common grass pea. As a wild plant it occurs throughout the Mediterranean, as far as the Caucasus and Central Asia, and it was domesticated between France and the Iberian Peninsula at the dawn of farming.
For centuries it was grown on the sunniest, chalkiest land, as fodder for livestock and as a source of protein for the poorest families or in times of famine. Today only a few families in Lentiscosa keep the tradition alive, and the Slow Food Presidium, supported by the Municipality of Camerota and the Park, aims to increase production by involving new growers.
Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Maracuoccio di Lentiscosa · Regione Campania — Maracuoccio di Lentiscosa (prodotto tradizionale)
Area and method of production
The production area is the municipality of Camerota, in the province of Salerno. Lentiscosa families prepare the soil in October and November and sow, in furrows or broadcast, during the winter months: the Presidium gives January to March, the regional sheet November to January.
Harvest begins in June, when the plants, low and similar to chickpeas, start to dry out. They are pulled up or mown and left in the sun on a sheet for a couple of weeks until everything, pods included, is dry; then they are beaten by hand with sticks so that the seeds fall onto cotton sheets.
Cultivation is manual and uses no synthetic fertilisers, weedkillers or other chemicals. The seeds are then stone-ground in local mills, usually together with wheat. Output is a few quintals a year, largely sold to local restaurants.
Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Maracuoccio di Lentiscosa · Regione Campania — Maracuoccio di Lentiscosa (prodotto tradizionale)
How to recognise it
The maracuoccio looks like a pea, but it is square-shaped with small seeds of 3-5 millimetres. The colour ranges from dark green to light brown, grey or reddish, often mottled or marbled, so a handful of seeds is never uniform.
The taste is usually slightly bitter, as the name promises. Rather than as a whole pulse, it is found as flour, already blended with soft-wheat flour and sold in bags.
According to the Campania Region, the traditional blend combines maracuoccio with soft wheat of the carosella variety, stone-ground together; the flour is available all year round.
Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Maracuoccio di Lentiscosa · Regione Campania — Maracuoccio di Lentiscosa (prodotto tradizionale)
In the kitchen
The maracuoccio is tied to one dish: maracucciata, a polenta cooked with the mixed flour of maracuoccio and wheat. It is enriched with extra virgin olive oil, croutons, onion, garlic and chilli, turning a farmhouse dish into a tasty, nourishing meal.
The proportions have a story. The Presidium speaks of half maracuoccio and half wheat, the regional sheet of 60% maracuoccio and 40% wheat. In the past only better-off families could keep to the original recipe; others changed the mix according to what the harvest provided, so much so that in dialect «maracucciata» came to mean an unusual, changeable mixture.
Today it is found mainly in local kitchens, where much of the production ends up.
Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Maracuoccio di Lentiscosa · Regione Campania — Maracuoccio di Lentiscosa (prodotto tradizionale)
Where to taste it
The home of the maracuoccio is Lentiscosa, in the hills of Camerota, in the southern Cilento, inside the Cilento, Vallo di Diano and Alburni National Park. Visitors to the Camerota coast can head inland to discover the fields where a few families still grow it.
Most of the production is sold to local restaurateurs, and the Presidium is working to build a local network of restaurants that promote it: the area's kitchens are the easiest place to taste maracucciata. The Presidium page lists the producers who sell the flour.
Harvest falls in June; the flour is available all year.
Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Maracuoccio di Lentiscosa · Parco Nazionale del Cilento, Vallo di Diano e Alburni
Protection
- Slow Food Presidium — maracuoccio-di-lentiscosa (Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Maracuoccio di Lentiscosa)
When
- Harvest: June (Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Maracuoccio di Lentiscosa)
- Summer