There are a great many reasons – geological, botanical, aesthetic and culinary – to visit Sicily’s Mount Etna, and a great many ways of going about it.
The perennially smoking hulk of Europe’s tallest active volcano has haunted the imagination of travellers over several millennia. They have criss-crossed its slopes by foot, whether sandalled or laced in hiking boots, on skis, horseback or mountain bike, by car and by train. They come to watch for spectacular lava flows, to explore the colourful and often unique vegetation that ranges from Mediterranean to Nordic in the space of a few miles, coveting the simple farmhouses of dark volcanic stone or the elegant villas of the landowners, stuccoed in a dark rose obtained from ground lava dust, and admiring the baroque swags and curlicues, carved in purple-grey lava, that decorate the cream-coloured churches. Each visitor has his own agenda: on a recent trip to Etna mine was decadent but quite delicious, a tour of the volcano via its pastry shops.
That sounds like something I should be embarrassed to confess, but on Etna the pastry shops are an organic part of a very special microcosm, a world in which man has learned to coexist with a millennial tug-of-war between molten lava spilling down the mountainside, and the vegetation – first lichen, then shrubs, finally trees – that slowly recolonises the hardened lava, breaking it down into rich volcanic soil that will provide a livelihood for the mountain’s farmers. Each flank of the mountain has its own landscape and its own crops, providing the distinctive character of the local pastries. It was, of course, cultural geography not greed that drove my agenda.
The obvious place to start a tour of Etna is Nicolosi, the highest town on the southern slope, billed as the “gateway to Etna”, both because the road up to the ski lift and the southern ski trails starts from here, and because it hosts the headquarters of the Mount Etna Park, which since its founding in 1987 has preserved much of the mountain from the onslaught of villas and suburban development that have devastated the southern face. We headed north-east to have breakfast at Santa Venerina.
Base camp: Mountain excitement
About 15 years ago I had my first stay at an agriturismo, one I had picked at whim from a list. The Azienda Trinità turned out to be a lovely 17th-century farmhouse at the foot of Etna, the summer residence of an aristocratic family from Catania; the young heir, Salvatore Bonajuto, was struggling to save the last seven acres of what had once been a much bigger estate and winery from encroaching residential development.
A bachelor and a landscape architect, Salvatore had at that point invested more energy in the garden than in the farmhouse. The bedroom was Spartan, and Salvatore arrived from Catania the next morning with industrial croissants and a jar of Nutella for our breakfast. But the garden was a wonderful collection of both local and exotic plants, handsomely set out around an ancient system of irrigation canals.
Over the years Azienda Trinità has become my base for visiting the Etna area. The arrival of Marina, Salvatore’s wife, added a much- needed feminine touch. The family now lives in the farmhouse, while various outbuildings have been converted into suites and bedrooms for guests, and the dining room serves traditional Sicilian cuisine, with an emphasis on using citrus fruits and other products from the family estates.
In addition Azienda Trinità offers garden tours, cooking classes, and the possibility of visiting the olive groves and vineyards while the harvest is in progress, as well as Salvatore’s botanical expertise, a real plus for plant lovers.
Azienda Trinità, Mascalucia. Tel: +39 095 7272156. www.aziendatrinità.it
We were drawn there by memories of a cornetto con cotognata, a sweetish croissant filled in this case with quince paste, and were relieved to find that it was still part of the wide assortment of traditional pastries that the Pasticceria Russo has been turning out since 1880. Many of them feature the almonds and the citrus fruits that grow at the south-eastern foot of Etna. The quality was very high in everything we tasted, but almond pastries are ubiquitous in Sicily and I was much more intrigued by the piparedda (a long, flat, soft biscuit redolent of cinnamon and cloves, whose dark brown colour comes not from chocolate, but from the recycling of stale or burnt pastries, a thrifty Sicilian custom that I had met before in different incarnations) and by the mostarda d’uva. My mother-in-law’s mostarda, made by cooking unfermented grape must with cornstarch, is sun-dried to the consistency of leather; here at the Pasticceria Russo we also found a spoon version, presented in little cups and sprinkled liberally with cinnamon, that was absolutely delicious.
From Santa Venerina we headed up the mountainside, then north towards Milo and Sant’Alfio, driving between chestnut and oak forests on the uphill side, and neatly terraced hazelnut groves below. Sant’Alfio marks the start of hazelnut country, and is the home of the Pasticceria La Spina, where they make a wicked hazelnut biscuit, soft and chewy and dusted with chopped nuts and powdered sugar.
On our way north from Sant’Alfio we stopped to pay our respects to the Chestnut of the 100 Horses, which at the estimated age of 3,000-4,000 years is thought to be the oldest tree in Europe. A medieval queen and her retinue of a hundred knights are said to have taken shelter during a thunderstorm under its enormous branches, a legend that greatly enhanced the reputation of the chestnut tree as a stopping point for foreigners taking the Grand Tour.
Chestnut trees are so much a part of the rural economy of Etna – we drove past numerous small lumber yards selling the chestnut stakes used to support the vines in the mountain’s terraced vineyards – that it seemed remarkable not to find any chestnuts in the pastries. Chestnut honey, however, gave a strong and unmistakable flavour to the mostaccioli on sale at the Pasticceria L’Alhambra in Linguaglossa. Almost every town in Sicily has its own version of mostaccioli; these were tubes of a very thin, rather hard pastry that had been filled with chopped hazelnuts, honey and cinnamon and bent into a horseshoe shape, and they were fantastic.
On we went through more hazelnut groves and many vineyards – Etna’s wines are all the buzz these days, and its vineyards are being bought up by everyone from Tuscan noblemen to British rock stars – past Randazzo, a town that has the only medieval monuments spared by the lava, and past the turn-off to the medieval abbey of Maniace, home of Lord Nelson and, until quite recently, of his descendants. The admiral was awarded the Duchy of Bronte by the King of Naples, and it was at Bronte we would end our tour, not because of Nelson but because it is the home of the Bronte Red, the world’s most coveted pistachio.
The terebinth, a wild cousin of the pistachio, is the first tree with roots strong enough to colonise the lava flows, and once established, it is grafted so as to produce a pistachio nut of brilliant green colour and intense flavour.
Almost every second doorway in Bronte offers pistachios in one form or another, but the most famous is the Pasticceria Conti Gallenti. They make an excellent filled spongecake made of ground pistachio nuts (served by the slice to eat on the spot) and a variety of small pistachio pastries, including one frosted with white chocolate, not a usual favourite of mine, but in this case the combination was remarkable.
In case you are wondering how we survived the day, these are sweets that travel well, in many cases individually wrapped, so a lot of the tasting could be done at home, where our arrival, laden with bags and parcels, was greeted with great enthusiasm. But we didn’t want dinner.
Mary Taylor Simeti is the author of ‘Pomp and Sustenance: Twenty-five Centuries of Sicilian Food’
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Details
Pasticceria Russo, Via Vittorio Emanuele
105, Santa Venerina. Closed Tuesdays. (www.dolcirusso.it)
Pasticceria La Spina, Via Vittorio Emanuele
810, Sant’Alfio. Closed Tuesdays.
Pasticceria L’Alhambra, Via G. Marconi 62,
Linguaglossa. Closed Tuesdays.
Bar Pasticceria Conti Gallenti, Corso
Umberto 275, Bronte. Closed Wednesdays.
