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Sorrento peninsula walnut

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

Apulica editorial team · Sources checked:

In brief

History and origin

The walnut tree has been tied to the Sorrento peninsula since antiquity. Sorrento walnuts were already grown and prized by the Romans: remains of walnuts and charred trees found at Herculaneum and Pompeii prove it, as do the walnuts painted in the Villa of the Mysteries.

The link survives in names too. Piano di Sorrento is also known as Caruotto, from a Greek word meaning walnut, and several places and streets on the peninsula preserve its memory. From here, according to the Presidium, the walnut spread to the rest of Campania, and the peninsula supplied the genetic material from which the Sorrento cultivar, the most widespread in Italy, was selected.

Today, however, growing it in its homeland is difficult: it is done on small, marginal and often terraced plots where harvesting is hard work, and many trees are no longer tended or replaced. The Slow Food Presidium, supported by the Campania Region, was set up to revive the local economy and save the walnut trees, which are part of the landscape and identity of the area.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Noce della penisola sorrentina · Regione Campania — Noce di Sorrento (prodotto tradizionale)

Area and method of production

The Presidium area includes Vico Equense, Meta, Piano di Sorrento, Sant'Agnello, Sorrento, Massa Lubrense, Capri and Anacapri, Agerola, Pimonte and Castellammare di Stabia, limited to the slopes of Monte Faito, in the province of Naples.

Traditionally the walnut grew alongside olives and vines on hillside terraces, while on the plain it accompanied citrus groves. The harvest, called bacchiatura, runs from September to late October depending on the area: the branches are beaten with long chestnut poles or the pickers climb the trees.

The nuts are sold fresh, just picked, or dried outdoors on racks. The Campania Region notes that yields vary greatly from year to year and that the Sorrento variety, with its biotypes, is also grown in other parts of the region, such as the Acerra-Nola plain, the Caserta area, the Phlegraean Fields and the Picentini.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Noce della penisola sorrentina · Regione Campania — Noce di Sorrento (prodotto tradizionale)

How to recognise it

The Sorrento peninsula walnut is medium-sized and regularly oval, with a rounded base and a slightly pointed tip. The shell is thin, smooth and brittle, a light cinnamon colour. The Region also describes a second common ecotype, smaller and rounder.

The kernel is pale, creamy white, plump, tender and crunchy, with a delicate, pleasant flavour. Its most prized quality is how easily it comes out of the shell in one piece, which pleases both pastry cooks and those who eat walnuts plain.

It is found fresh in the harvest months, or dried.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Noce della penisola sorrentina · Regione Campania — Noce di Sorrento (prodotto tradizionale)

In the kitchen

In the cooking of the coast walnuts feature in many recipes: sauces, spaghetti with walnuts and above all pastry, with biscuits, nougat and semifreddi. The kernel that comes out of the shell whole makes them especially loved by pastry cooks.

The walnut also gives a famous liqueur, nocino, here also called nocillo, one of the specialities most closely tied to this fruit.

Fresh, just picked, the walnuts are enjoyed plain in the autumn months; dried on racks, they accompany the rest of the year.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Noce della penisola sorrentina

Where to taste it

Walnut trees are found all along the Sorrento peninsula, on the terraced hills of Vico Equense, Meta, Piano di Sorrento, Sant'Agnello, Sorrento and Massa Lubrense, on the island of Capri and in the mountains behind the coast, at Agerola, Pimonte and on the slopes of Monte Faito. Piano di Sorrento, with its old name of Caruotto, even carries the walnut in its name.

Autumn, between September and October, is the bacchiatura season, when fresh walnuts reach the market. The Slow Food Presidium page lists the member growers, and nocino and walnut sweets can be found all year round.

Visitors to the peninsula can spot the walnut trees in the terraced landscape, alongside olives, vines and citrus.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Noce della penisola sorrentina

Protection

When

Where

Campania