Preserving Italian fruit
In the most specialized shops of gastronomic goods, as in the farmer’s markets, it’s very easy to find in their typical glass jars flaunting a colorful variety, natural jams and preserved fruit or vegetables. The old practice to preserve surplus or seasonal food throughout the year, in syrup, water, vinegar and honey, but also with wine, or wiskey, or brandy, has very ancient origins in Italy, since the pre-Roman times, and even if nowadays the most common preservation practices involve the hermetic canning technique, very often with chemical preservatives, there still live in Italy, little, artisanal, farmers who produce according the ancient traditions.
Preserving peaches
Among the many techniques to preserve fruit, for the Ivana, a real farmers, still the most common way to preserve fruits is syrup.
In the sunny valley of Valdaso, in the south of Marche region, every year Ivana, transforms the fruit of her family-owned company, peaches, apricots, plums, cherries, nashi, in enjoyable delicacies: jams and syrupped fruit, and her most famous speciality: pesche sciroppate, syrupped peaches.
Her method involve placing hand peeled and cut peaches in glass containers, with water, sugar (not too much), lemon and then boiled in a type of pressure cooker. The artisanal and unaltered preparation of her fruits gives her products great values. The first one is the nutritional value, fruit maintain most of its healthy properties, the second great value is maintain and preserve ancient traditions.
This is a small niche of Italian gourmet products: syrupped peaches, apricots, plums
