Fruit, vegetables and pulses

Lentiscosa maracuoccio

Lentiscosa maracuoccio: a bitter-edged legume from the hills of Camerota

In Lentiscosa, in the hills above Camerota, a few families still grow maracuoccio, a wild relative of grass pea. They sow it in winter, pull it in June, sun-dry it and beat out the seeds by hand, with no synthetic chemicals. It is a Slow Food Presidium.

• Small, squarish seeds of a few millimetres, from dark green to grey or reddish
• Speckled and marbled coats: no two handfuls look alike
• Slightly bitter, true to a name thought to mean "bitter pod"

How to enjoy it. It comes mostly as a stone-ground flour milled with wheat, made into maracucciata: a polenta finished with onion, garlic, chilli, toasted bread and plenty of extra virgin olive oil.

Production areas

Campania

Season

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