Re: Medit.-style eating (almonds)
No-one in Italy seems to have picked up on the thread about the immature almonds. Here in Apulia, the
heel of Italy, and a huge almond producer, there are three or four stages of growth when we eat
almonds.
First is in about May when the young fruits have set and before there is any hardness to the shell,
and we simply pick one off a tree and crunch through the entire fruit. Sometimes the part which will
one day be the almond we find in shops is still rather gelatinous at that stage, slightly bitter, very
refreshing when you are on an early summer trek and come across an almond grove (and the farmer is,
usually, quite happy for you to take just one or two to lighten the load on the branches, and
physically you can only eat three at the most - I think you'd get a bit of a belly-ache if you feasted
on them).
Then there is a time in about July when the shell is almost hard, and you risk your teeth if you try
to bite through it, but the fruit inside is deliciously tender, again very refreshing, even on a hot
day on the beach. In Sicily and Calabria especially, they use this refreshing quality to make "latte
di mandorla" (almond milk), which is the most thirst-quenching, cooling and energising summer beverage
I know.
Then when the fruit matures at the beginning of September, people gather round the tree with sticks to
beat the almonds off the branches, and these can be used for roasting and many other culinary delights
(see the white gazpacho recipe I posted in September). The husks make good mulching materials, and
people even used to be paid in almond husks until not many years ago!
And then of course you can eat them for what seems like years (if you can get the shells off!), and
they still appear to be nutritious and flavoursome.
