“If you want to get married, you have to collect virdura”: the vanishing custom of gathering and cooking wild food plants on Vulcano, Aeolian Islands, Sicily

ABSTRACT

Despite the comprehensive bio-scientific literature regarding the Mediterranean Diet, in-depth ethnographic studies focusing on wild-food-plant-based folk cuisines are still scarce in Mediterranean coastal areas. This research aimed to analyze the wild and semi-domesticated plant components of the Mediterranean Diet on Vulcano Isle, Sicily, by interviewing thirty elderly people, who were selected among the last remaining traditional environmental and gastronomic knowledge holders. Local food uses of fifty-two plants and one mushroom belonging to twenty-three families were recorded, showing how wild food plant uses are still alive in the folk cuisine of Vulcano among the oldest community members. The resilience of this custom is traceable in the cultural importance ascribed to traditional recipes, to the memories linked to the past agrarian way of life, to the complexity of their tastes, and to their remarkable perception as healthy foods. In the changing environment of Vulcano, however, where consumption of industrialized food has already taken hold also due to seasonal mass tourism, traditional knowledge linked to wild vegetables is under threat, as young and middle generations are detached from it. Wild vegetables-centered traditional knowledge represents, however, one of the fundamental elements of the local heritage that would need to be preserved and re-vitalized via appropriate initiatives of sustainable eco-tourism.

KEYWORDS:

• Ethnobotany
• Mediterranean diet
• wild food plants
• Sicily
• Vulcano

Acknowledgments

The authors’ special thanks go to the study participants of Vulcano, who generously shared their folk knowledge.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The research was partially financed by the University of Gastronomic Sciences, Pollenzo, Italy.

Notes on contributors

Francesco Cucinotta

Francesco Cucinotta recently graduated from the University of Gastronomic Sciences with a Bachelor’s degree in Gastronomic Sciences (with a focus on food ethnobotany). He is currently enrolled in a Master’s program in Nutrition and Health at Wageningen University and Research Centre in the Netherlands and he is designing a study focusing on the nutritional and the pharmacological impact of Mediterranean food plants on current major chronic diseases.

Andrea Pieroni

Andrea Pieroni is Professor of Ethnobotany and Rector of the University of Gastronomic Sciences, Pollenzo, Italy, founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, and former President of the International Society of Ethnobiology. His research focuses on cross-cultural ethnobotanical knowledge systems and their temporal and spatial shifts in the Mediterranean, the Balkans, and the Near East, especially among diasporic and isolated groups.