Slow Food Presidium 
The Bruno Sodano farm is a small agricultural reality handed down from generation to generation. The total area is about 6 hectares, partly in rent and partly owned.
For about twenty years the company has adopted a sustainable cultivation method and has choosen to grow traditional Campania horticultural varieties now in danger of extinction among which there are:
The cultivation of these products is done with almost entirely manual operations that respect the environment and the integrity of the product.
The farm is involved in many networks and project: Guardian Farmers of the Campania Region; “Orti Di Napoli” – a Chamber of Commerce project for the recovery of the vegetable germplasm of five products; Gaggiù project; ABC project for the establishment of the Campania herbaceous agrobiodiversity network. It collaborates with the Agricultural University of Portici for the recovery of traditional species and with local administrations to enhance local products. The company participates in the plan of the integral struggle of the Campania Region.
Furthermore we organize guided tours of the company for education project with the schools.
Thanks to the company’s commitment to safeguarding endangered varieties, safeguarding biodiversity and enhancing the company’s production area, Pomigliano D’arco, it has aroused interest and has been invited to several TV programme such as: Linea verde, Mela Verde, Report and reports on Tg5 and Tg3.
The papaccella is a small sweet pepper, round and ribbed with a very thick skin that can be bright yellow, red or green. Young consumers often confuse them with regular peppers but older generations remember them well and never pass them up when they manage to find them in the market. The peppers are excellent when pickled or in a sweet-and-sour dish typical to Brusciano. The Campania Regional Authority has salvaged the germplasm and reproduces the seeds of the original variety in an experimental field, making them available to the Presidium producers to grow.
Production area: Agro Acerrano-Nolano, Naples Province
Its name, which means “a hundred days,” comes from the average length of the production cycle. The peas are grown in open fields, often intercropped with fruit trees like apricots and cherries, or sometimes grapevines, and do not need to be irrigated. The climbing plants are supported by a system of wooden poles and interwoven wires or nets. Appreciated for their sensory qualities, such as their exceptional sweetness, and the tenderness of their skin even when dried, the peas make an excellent accompaniment to meat dishes and endures thanks to a few farmers who guaranteed its survival by maintaining the production from generation to generation. This presidium was created to protect this variety and to promote the work of the vesuvian farmers.
Production area
Somma Vesuviana, Sant’Anastasia, Massa di Somma, Pollena Trocchia, Cercola, Naples –Ponticelli quarter, San Sebastiano al Vesuvio, San Giorgio a Cremano, Portici, Ercolano, Torre del Greco, Torre Annunziata, Trecase, Boscotrecase, Boscoreale, Terzigno, San Giuseppe Vesuviano, Ottaviano, Pomigliano, Poggiomarino and Pompei municipalities around Vesuvius, Naples province, Campania region
Even the most renowned vegetables can be at risk extinction. This was the case for the San Marzano tomato, an extremely delicate vegetable that is difficult to grow and process. When it is ripe, its fields release wonderful scents of cut grass and spices. The same aromas are experienced when eating the tomato. Dozens of ecotypes exist and they have been recovered from the vegetable gardens in the Naples area and selected by the researchers of the Campania Regional Authority. The Presidium has re-launched the San Marzano production and today producers grow fresh tomatoes as well as produce puree, other traditional preserves and tinned tomatoes.
Production area: Agro nocerino sarnese (Naples province)
Seasonality: fresh tomatoes are harvested from July until the end of September, but the preserves area available throughout the year.
The cultivation of this cannellino bean in the countryside of Acerra is mentioned in a historic 1938 edition of the Touring Club guide, a data resource about Italian agriculture that today has unfortunately disappeared. It is a local ecotype, which found its ideal cultivation area in the volcanic, rich soils of Acerra. It has a particularly thin skin, excellent texture and intense flavor. In the Neapolitan gastronomic tradition, it is particularly suited to the preparation of dishes such as soups and pasta with beans. During the last decades its cultivation had dropped dramatically, being continued only for household consumption. The Presidium aims to support a group of local producers that decided to resurrect the cultivation of the beans.
Production area: Acerra, Brusciano, Mariglianella, Marigliano, Castello di Cisterna and Pomigliano d’Arco Municipalities, Naples Province, and Maddaloni and San Felice a Cancello Municipalities, Caserta Province
Seasonality: sown in spring, in April, or late, in July. Harvest takes place respectively in July and September-October.
Torzella is one of the oldest cabbages in the world. Its history begins 4000 years ago in the Eastern area of the Mediterranean basin. For this reason it is called “greek cabbage”, or curly torza in dialect. In ancient times, farmers, to deal with the climatic harshness, consumed it because it was a satiating food and at the same time low in fat. It was very popular especially among peasant families who lived in the Acerrano-Nolano area.
It is present in the Regional Bank of Campania Vegetable Germplasm and is registered in the Campania Regional Repertoire as a variety at risk of extinction and, as of this year, it is a Slow Food Presidium.
Product description
It is a herbaceous plant with an autumn-winter cycle. It has fleshy curly leaves, dark green in color, and is very resistant to cold. The yellow flowers are collected in inflorescences (corymb). The edible product is made up of tender sprouts with leaves, cooked in appetizing dishes of traditional Campania cuisine. The first harvest takes place by removing the central shoot, thus favoring the emission of secondary, smaller shoots, which represent the majority of marketable production. The harvest therefore takes place in several solutions in the months from November to the beginning of April.
Consumption
For its intense flavor it is ideal for winter soups, when the first colds make it tender. The tradition of consuming this vegetable is mainly linked to the “married soup” together with other leafy vegetables. A very popular traditional dish among peasant families was soup paired with San Marzano tomatoes, but it is also used as a vegetable side dish.
Originally in Europe there were only beans of species belonging to the genus Vigna (cowpea), of sub-Saharan origin. The beans that are commonly used today were first cultivated by the Mexican and Peruvian civilizations 5,000 years ago and were widespread among both the Aztecs and the Incas.
The Fagiolo a Formella owes its dialectal name to its characteristic flat shape of the grain that resembles a button (in Neapolitan formella).
Consumption
They are found on the market fresh (rarely), dried or canned, in water and salt. It has a characteristic flavor that comes from the strong presence of asparagine inside. Delicate flavor, however, which could be defined as green and fresh and which makes Formella beans ideal companions for fish in the combinations so frequent in modern cuisine. This does not exclude a more traditional use: soups, bean and vegetable soups, pasta and beans, easy to prepare because the shaped beans do not need to be soaked and require a short cooking.
Rich in proteins, like all beans, and a good source of vitamins, Formella beans are included in the Slow Food Ark of Taste and among the Traditional Agri-food Products of Campania, and find their perfect place in the Mediterranean diet: let’s not forget that the arrival of beans, in all their variants, in our lands, was fundamental to integrate the nutrition of the poorest part of the population, subject to disease and death due to nutritional deficiencies, especially protein, when the consumption of meat was still a luxury for few.
The Sodano company is one of the few producers who continue the cultivation of Formella beans, after a period of oblivion that has almost led to their disappearance.
The plant is native to Chile and Ecuador, where due to the tropical climate it offers its fruits all year round, while in our regions it has an annual cycle limited to summer, if grown outdoors. Dominator of Neapolitan gastronomy and widely spread all over the world for its taste as well as for its important dietary properties, the tomato reached European kitchens relatively recently and, although imported already in the sixteenth century, only two centuries later it was used in the supply.
The territory of GiaGiù
GiaGiù is a variety of a bright golden yellow tomato found in the Vesuvian area (slopes of Vesuvius), in the municipality of Herculaneum; the story tells that from the cultivation of the patanara ecotype (piennolo red tomato) from a spontaneous mutation a golden yellow tomato plant appeared. An elderly farmer tried this new variant of the red tomato and, finding it organoleptically very good, decided to keep the seed. Its cultivation on the slopes of Vesuvius, confined until a few years ago only in family gardens, has been present for more than 50 years and only for a few years, thanks to the Federico II UNINA-DIA and ARCA 2010 University, a process of enhancement has begun commercial and distribution throughout the territory.
Product description
The unripe fruits have the “typical” green shoulder, when ripe they are of an intense and uniform golden yellow color of an oval shape with slight longitudinal ribs (a characteristic also typical of the red tomato ecotypes of Piennolo del Vesuvio) and medium-sized stylar apex . Distinctive note of this ecotype is the sour flavor well harmonized with the underlying sweetness that releases a persistent tomato aroma. It belongs to the Solanaceae family, the annual herbaceous plant, with indeterminate development. The fruit is a berry weighing between 15-25 grams in the Vesuvian area, while in the Neapolitan plain it varies between 25-35 grams.
Consumption
It has a strong tomato flavor which makes it ideal for both fresh and canned consumption. Fresh it can be used both raw and cooked, in combination with pasta, pizza, seasonal vegetables and of course with fish
Last modified: 21 Jan 2022
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