Pom Matan

Pom Matan is an native apple variety of the Turin hills. The fruit is green and, when fully ripe, has hints of red. It is harvested between September and October and can be conserved until late Spring. Every year, in the second week of September, the traditional Pom Matan festival takes place in San Sebastiano da Po.

This apple has a delicious flavor when eaten fresh. Otherwise it is a wonderful, inexpensive ingredient for various traditional dishes that are used during holidays. There is no organized processing of this product commercially: the product is prepared only in home kitchens and can be bought fresh solely in local markets, as it can not be conserved for very long. This variety of apple is used to prepare the traditional recipe from San Sebastiano called agnulot’d pom matan. The dough for the shell is the same as that used for meat ravioli and the preparation is exactly the same. The difference with the meat ravioli is found in the filling, which is prepared by cooking the apples and adding a bit of butter, nutmeg, sausage (which is boiled first and then chopped and blended) and salt. A variation of the filling, which is more economical, replaced the sausage with eggs, cabbage and stale bread. These apple ravioli are served with tomato sauces with various vegetables. Pom matan is also an ingredient in friceaü, apple fritters, mustard (made with concentrated apple juice), apple scallops and a cake that is called “black cake”.