Polizzi Generosa Pepper

Polizzi Generosa has slightly more than 3,000 inhabitants, and over 40 churches. A stone village clinging to a ridge in the heart of the Madonie, it preserves an extraordinary wealth of culture, architecture (churches and aristocratic palaces) and food, such as Badda beans (a Slow Food Presidium), hazelnuts and a pepper known in the local dialect as pipiddu. Small, with a conical shape of varying regularity, it has a bright green skin that turns red when ripe. Most unusually, this pepper grows upwards; instead of hanging down under the leaves, the pod points up. The history of this traditional pepper can only be reconstructed thanks to oral testimony; it seems that in the past, the seasonal hazelnut pickers in Polizzi Generosa were rewarded for their work with flavorful snacks of bread topped with olives, pecorino cheese and roasted pipiddu.
Cultivation requires great patience: Each plant must be supported because otherwise the weight of the fruit would bend it down. The seeds are sown in April and the seedlings are planted out in the fields between the end of May and June. Flowering starts in July and continues until October. The single white flowers grow from a sturdy upward-pointing stalk. The harvest takes place in stages, starting in July and continuing until November.
The peppers can be eaten raw, in salads, but the most typical local preparation is grilled peppers dressed with extra-virgin olive oil, basil and wine vinegar. The Presidium is also recovering some traditional recipes from the older people in the village, including a pepper sauce and peppers preserved in oil.

Season

The harvest lasts from July to November.