From the slopes of Mount Etna to the Valley of the Temples, Sicily is home to crops of one of the island’s most famous products, often known as “green gold.” One might think of olive oil, which is certainly green, but in this case the name refers not to olive trees but to another plant cultivated in Sicily, especially around Bronte, in the province of Catania, and Raffadali, in the province of Agrigento.
It is the pistachio – fastuca or frastuca in Sicilian dialect, while frastucara is the name of the tree that bears it – a crop also grown in Spain, Turkey, Iran and the United States. Sicilian pistachios, and those from Bronte in particular, are protected by PDO status and regulated by a strict consortium.
