The Land where Lemons grow: the story of Italy and its Citrus Fruit by Helena Attlee
London: Penguin Books, 2015 (first published 2014) ISBN 9780241952573
When my wife bought this book several years ago I was intrigued by the sub-title. I know the mafia germinated in the lemon groves of Sicily (excuse the pun), and thought that this book might give me some insight into that snippet of Italian history. It didn't really do that, but it has given me so much more, and is a fascinating insight into the story of citrus fruit and how it has intertwined with the Italian lifestyle for more than five hundred years.
Attlee's book is a combination of her experience travelling around Italy's historic citrus growing areas, sprinkled with the history of the fruit, and the social milieu of the growers over time, focusing mainly on history from the Renaissance. The book is full of interesting snippets of history, information about the fruits and how they were used, and fills the reader with the desire to go and see these scenes themselves.
There is lots of interesting information about citrus. Attlee explains that the entire citrus catalogue sprang from three original fruits - Pomelo, Mandarin and Citron, from Malaysia, China and the Himalaya. A curious feature of the citrus family is that cross-pollination is not only possible, it happens incredibly easily, so if you plant different types of citrus together they will continually hybridize.
And so we have Oranges, Lemons, Bergamot and Citron, which along with smaller references to Sour Orange (a fruit which is now pretty much a historical oddity), form the framework of this book. Attlee seeks out the places in Italy where they are still grown, explains their origins in the country, their expansion, decline and regrowth.
The fruits were originally brought in by others (the Citron to Calabria by Jews in c. AD 70 and the Lemon to Sicily by Arabs in approximately 900), and through hard work, the climate of Italy did the rest. Attlee is at pains to point out that for some reason the citrus grown in Italy is superior to those grown in other climes. The Citrons of Calabria are still valued by certain Jewish sects to use in their ceremonies. The Bergamot is valued in perfume. The Lemons of Sicily are world famous, and made many (particularly the Mafia) rich on the back of supply contracts with the Royal Navy.
But it's not only Southern Italy where citrus flourished. The Medici and other Italian nobility had great collections of citrus in the Sixteenth Century - in the colder climes of Tuscany and Lake Garda the citrus was potted and moved into glasshouses to survive the winter, or, if planted at Lake Garda, had greenhouses built around them to overwinter.
Once the Nineteenth Century moved into the Twentieth, the citrus boom died off. The Lemons of Lake Garda disappeared during World War One, when the timber of their temporary greenhouses was used for trenches - the aristocratic citrus gardens of Florence had long since withered. The Royal Navy had turned to "British" limes (from the West Indies) for its vitamin C (about half as good as Sicilian lemons as it turns out), and the world had found cheaper and closer places to source citrus.
Attlee explains all this in just enough detail to be interesting, but not so much that the reader gets lost. She also describes how some entrepreneurial Italians are trying to rebuild the great traditions of Italian citrus growing, becoming artisan producers, with a focus on quality to try and recapture the glory years.
The Land where Lemons grow is a wonderful book in so many ways - highly recommended.
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