Close your eyes and image Sicily in all its glory, some two thousand years ago. A precious stone set in the crystal blue Mediterranean, she was the envy of every nation: the Greeks conquered it, longing to settle in such a fertile, beautiful land; the Romans got it back and transformed it into the heart of their economy. And then came the Vandals, the Goths and the Byzantines, all the way to the Arabs, the Normans and the Swabians, known for having left an indelible imprint on the island.
Fertile, rich Sicily: the granaio di Roma, Rome’s own barn, because this was where the capital’s best cereals came from. A golden wealth bestowing on this land drenched in sun hues of yellow, brown and ochre, gold and red. The importance of cereals in Sicily is not only aesthetic, of course, nor historical: it has to do also with tradition, heritage and cuisine. Throughout the centuries, Sicily had become home to many a variety of wheat that were, in most cases, taken over in time by modern common wheat (triticum aestivum), a stronger, easier to cultivate variety. Another case of profit destroying tradition: not quite.
