Category: Company Vision

Clementines of Calabria (“Mandarini”)

10.02.2019

Calabrian cuisine hosts one of the sweetest citrus in the world, the so called “clementine” (Citrus clementina), which is a tangor, a hybrid between a willowleaf mandarin orange (Citrus deliciosa) and a sweet orange (Citrus sinensis). It is so named since 1902.

MYTH AND LEGEND

There is a lot of history and legend about the Orange (mother of clementine, the sweetest citrus in the world). Particularly, Orange is, symbolically, a Calabrian little sun.

From the Garden of Hesperides


This all-Calabrian fruit, modern but belonging to the noble citrus family, is, maybe, the famous “precious gold of the Garden of the Hesperides”. According to Greek mythology, Hera offered to her husband Zeus some small trees with golden fruits, symbol of fertility and love, that he, for fear that someone stole them, had kept in a garden at the extreme West of the world, guarded by a dragon and by the nymphs Hesperides, girls singing sweet songs and protagonists of many other legends.

Elios’ fruit

Another myth tells of Orange as the precious fruits beloved by Elios, the divinity of the sun, who, after finishing its daily course, went to rest right in the Garden of the Hesperides …

ORIGINS

The clementine is a spontaneous citrus, arose in the late 19th century in Misserghin, Algeria. The name derives from the garden of the orphanage of Brother Marie-Clément, in Algeria, where it would be cultivated for the first time.

Another origin could be a similar fruit native to the provinces of Guangxi and Guangdong in present-day China (this explain the name “mandarin citrus”), but the main theory is that clementine arose from a cross between a sweet orange (Citrus sinensis) and the Mediterranean willowleaf mandarin (Citrus deliciosa), in Algeria.

In both cases it is relatively certain that it was the Botanical Garden of Palermo, since its inauguration in 1795, that introduced mandarin in Italy and Europe, together with the medlar. First the mandarin grew in this garden overlooking the sea facing Palermo and from there it spread to local crops.

VARIETIES

There are three types of clementines:

  • seedless clementines,
  • clementines with maximum of 10 seeds,
  • and Monreal (more than 10 seeds).

Italian Clementines resemble other citrus varieties such as the satsuma and tangerines. The main Italian varities are Clementine del Golfo di Taranto, Italian cultivar given Protected geographical indication (PGI) status by the European Union, produced around the Gulf of Taranto, and Clementine di Calabria, another Italian PGI variety, grown in the Calabria region.

Juicy and fresh

FEATURES

The exterior is a deep orange colour with a smooth, glossy appearance. Clementines can be separated into 7 to 14 segments. Similar to tangerines, they tend to be easy to peel. They are typically juicy and sweet, with less acid than oranges.

The exterior is small, round, sweet and fragrant, its color is the same as the fiery sunsets of the Mediterranean, of which it recalls myths and legends. The internal oils, like other citrus fruits, contain mostly limonene as well as myrcene, linalool, α-pinene and many complex aromatics.

OUR CALABRIAN VARIETY

The clementines are harvested from October to February in the province of Reggio Calabria: Ardore, Benestare, Bianco, Bovalino, Brancaleone, Casignana, Caulonia, Ferruzzano, Locri, Marina di Gioiosa Jonica, Monasterace, Portigliela, Roccella Jonica, Sant’Ilario dello Jonio, Siderno, Rizziconi, Gioia Tauro, Palmi, Rosarno, San Ferdinando.

In the province of Catanzaro: Borgia, Botricello, Curinga, Davoli, Lamezia Terme, Maida, Montauro, Montepaone, San Floro, San Pietro a Maida, Sant’Andrea Apostolo dello Jonio, Sellia Marina, Simeri Crichi, Soverato, Squillace, Catanzaro.

In the province of Cosenza: Cassano Jonio, Castrovillari, Corigliano Calabro, Crosia, Francavilla Marittima, San Lorenzo del Vallo, Spezzano Albanese, Terranova da Sibari, Trebisacce, Vaccarizzo Albanese, Rossano, Saracena, Cariati, Calopezzati, San Demetrio Corone, San Giorgio Albanese.

Fresh, into candied fruit, jam, juices, desserts, liqueurs…

In the province of Vibo Valentia: Briatico, Francavilla Angitola, Limbadi, Nicotera, Pizzo and in the province of Crotone: Cirò Marina, Crucoli Torretta, Rocca di Neto.

Clementines can be tasted fresh or made into candied fruit, jam, juices, sorbets, desserts and liqueurs. You keep an ambient temperature for 2 or 3 days, but if you want to keep them longer, they must be stored in the fridge.

…Taste this Mediterranean Authentic fruit of Calabria and you will find and appreciate Myth, History and the Real Scent of Calabrian Cuisine!

Bergamot: Our quality brand

7.02.2019

SMAF Associates LTD operates in the Bergamot sector as a national and international “Supplier”. Our activity towards the Bergamot starts from a long experience in the agricultural products market, in the buying, selling, import-export, logistics, sea-to-sea and land transport, insurance and customs issues. We also sell the Calabrian BERGAMOT DERIVATIVES: essence, debris, puree and juice.

Our quality brand protects the ORIGINAL BERGAMOT OF CALABRIA, a citrus fruit whose worldwide cultivation is concentrated mostly in Italy (about 90%), in the province of Reggio Calabria.

The presence of liaison offices in Calabria ensures us a strategic position for the supply and distribution of this good. We are the privileged interlocutor for the World of Commercial Catering and Collective Food, the HORECA sector and all the business forms that need a high level of quality about Bergamot as well as a constant and customized quality standard.

Boxes, ready to be loaded on the pallet

From our photos in this post, you can clearly understand how our quality brand offers the best fruit, coming from the real bergamot cultivation as rooted on the Ionian coast of Reggio Calabria, in the area from Villa San Giovanni to Gioiosa Jonica, on an area of about 1500 hectares, with a cultivation that makes 20,000 tons of fruit with an average of 100,000 kg. of essential oil.

In this place, Bergamot is mainly cultivated in alluvial and clayey limestone fields, where a greater yield of essential oil is obtained. The best fields are those located in hilly areas not subject to frost and exposed to good sun-lighting. In fact, bergamot is very sensitive to thermal swings and can be damaged if the temperature drops below 3 ° C or rises too much; it also needs frequent irrigation.

CULTIVARS GUARANTEED BY OUR BRAND

Of the bergamot are known three cultivars (typologies):

Castagnaro: The fruit is glossy, medium-thick peel. The fruit harvest begins in November. The tree is good height and has large leaves with a lanceolate geometry.

Feminine: The fruit is spherical with a thin skin. The fruit harvest begins at the end of October and the tree grows quickly but with little height. It is a plant little long but premature and has medium growth leaves with a lanceolate geometry.

Fantastic: The fruit is globe shaped, the plant has good height, it is rustic and has larger leaves than other cultivars. Harvesting of fruits takes place in November-December.

TECHNICAL USE

Use in cosmetics: Bergamot has a delicate and persistent aroma, which is an excellent scent even by itself.

Nobody could imagine that our perfumes come from these boxes

Nevertheless, along with other citrus essential oils it contributes to fix the bouquet of perfumes by transmitting to cosmetics an indefinable sweetness and exquisite freshness.

It is well-known that essential bergamot oil, thanks to its freshness, is the basic ingredient not only of classic Cologne water but also of many other delicate perfumery products, compositions such as “Chypres” and “Fougères”, of modern basis of fantasy, cosmetics and soaps, etc.; to scent soaps it must be used with caution given its low stability with alkalis.

Other aromatic uses: Bergamot derived pectins can be used for jams or, conversely, for aromatizing tobacco pipes, candies, tea, etc..

In recent years, essential bergamot oil has been used with great success in suntans, thanks to the presence of photodynamic substances (furocumarine or psoralen) known for their ability to stimulate melanogenesis.

Medicinal or herbal use: Essential oil is a potent antiseptic, but unlike phenol, it is not smelly or caustic.

It is antiseptic to urinary, digestive and respiratory tracts.

The strenght of fruit

On a nutritional level, bergamot (or lemon) juice, with the weak acids contained in it (acetic, malic, citric, tartaric acids…), gives rise to the production of carbonates and carbonate alkaline (potassium and calcium above all), which in addition to promoting intestinal calcium absorption, contribute to maintaining the alkaline reserve.

NUTRACEUTICALS

Vitamines: For the vitamin C, Bl and B2, P and vitamin A and E content in juice and flavedo, bergamot can be considered a fruit with good vitamin content; therefore, it is useful in bone disorders due to altered calcium absorption, teething disorders, collagen pathologies, muscular weakness or even neuromuscular hyper-excitability, cardiac heretism, iron deficiency anaemia, hepatic congestion and various diseases with impaired vessel permeability.

The essential bergamot oil (which today is used at an average dose of 1-2 drops per day, away from meals, diluted in water or in a teaspoon of honey or in pearls) stimulates appetite and liver and pancreatic functions.

It is useful in cholecystitis, in tachycardia and arterial hypertension: it is locally useful in stomatitis, gingivitis and pharyngitis; it is an intestinal, disinfectant and astringent pesticide. It is balsamic in the respiratory tract. It acts in a tonic and antidepressant way on the psyche.

Essential oil can be used in the field of herbal medicine as an aroma therapy support, with neuro-sedative and antidepressant functions and as a adjunct to psoriasis and vitiligo therapies.