Biodiverse, meaning unique

We are used to seeing primarily orange carrots on our tables, on the greengrocer’s counters, and in supermarkets. Few are aware that, originally, carrots were purple in colour, as reports from Afghanistan and Turkey indicate.

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Only later, and as a result of spontaneous genetic mutations, did specimens of this species take on colourations closer to orange. For confirmation of this, one need only look at one of the still lifes by Juan Sánchez Cotán, a seventeenth-century painter: he depicts precisely white parsnips and yellow and purple carrots. From such crops could derive the Polignano Carrot, which has roots with the colourations above and which until 10 years ago was considered a local variety at risk of extinction, like thirteen other crops included in a list drawn up by the Apulia Region, on the instructions of the former Department of Plant Production Sciences of the University of Bari

Polignano carrot

Since then, thanks in part to the work of researchers in Bari, the Polignano Carrot has been increasingly appreciated, for its organoleptic and nutritional characteristics, so much so that today the risk is diametrically opposed: it could end up being over-grown and wrongly cultivated, even outside its area of choice, and produce a kind of genetic drift. In the first publication in 2012, it was shown that, compared to common carrots, the Polignano Carrot is sweeter, despite having a lower value of total sugars (sucrose, glucose and fructose). In addition, the purple-coloured one is richer in antioxidants (Cefola et al., 2012). In 2013, another publication in an international journal illustrated a method for making differently coloured Polignano Carrot jams, preserving the organoleptic and nutritional characteristics of the fresh vegetable (Renna et al., 2013). In 2014, the many ethnobotanical and characterization information acquired by Bari researchers pertaining to this vegetable was compiled in a review published in a leading scientific journal concerned with genetic resources.

So attention to the Polignano Carrot grew, as did requests for seeds to start new crops…, and it was included in the national list of traditional food products in 2015.

Tiggian carrot

The Tiggian Carrot is a local variety grown almost exclusively in the territories of Tiggiano (2,894 inhabitants), Tricase (17,640 inhabitants) and Specchia (4,873 inhabitants), in the province of Lecce.

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We owe its survival to popular devotion to St. Hyppatius, the Eastern saint who is the protector of male virility and is also invoked to guard against inguinal hernia. Legend has it, in fact, that the saint himself allegedly suffered from this condition after receiving a tremendous kick in the lower abdomen during an argument with Arian heretics. Tradition has it that Tiggian peasants sow pestanaca (a local terminology by which carrots have been referred to since Greek and Roman times in various places in southern Italy), in small patches of land, in time for the celebrations in honour of the patron saint on January 19. Also held on this day is the fair of St. Hyppazio, the first fair of the year for the entire lower Salento region. Following this, other celebrations take place in small neighbouring towns in honor of the saints. After Tiggiano, the celebrations are repeated in Specchia, on Feb. 2, for the Candlemas festival; then it is the turn of St. Blaise, on Feb. 3, in Corsano. During this two-week period the Tiggiano Carrot is harvested, sold and consumed. It is a purple-coloured root, rich in anthocyanins, especially cyanidins, mottled, degrading, in the distal part of the taproot, toward orange, because it is also rich in carotenoids, especially ß-carotene.

The shape, size and colour, despite the variability imposed by the environment, planting time and cultivation technique, are quite regular, thanks to the strict selection work that farmers have carried out over the years. These are mostly retired elders who devote a few areas, cultivated in a simple way, to the exquisite pestanaca. All that is needed is basic organic fertilization and a lot of water for the sowing to be done between July and August to produce a few kilos of “pestanache” for St. Japontius. Delaying is impossible: on the day of St. Hyapatius, the taproots must be displayed in the square, in front of the saint’s church, next to the jujubes (a small fruit that is harvested in September and stored to be eaten on the day of St. Hyapatius) to complete the ritual, the allusive symbol of what is protected by the thaumaturgic saint. The devotion reenacts each year the strong bond between the people of Tiggian and St. Hyppazio.

There are other folk traditions related to the cult of the saint: in the past, mothers would give St. Hyppatius as much bread as the weight of their little one for whom they asked protection from the terrible inguinal hernia, and they also donated their men’s underwear to preserve their virility. Today, one simply gives one’s mates and husbands pestanaches, alluding to their “beneficial” effects. This is faithfully reported by the writer Mario Desiati, in his book Ternitti (Mondadori, Milan, 2011), who describes St. Ippazio as “the saint of Tiggiano, a small town of golden masserias ( small and typical farms to these areas) , protector of hernia and pricks, a patron to whom by vow the women of the neighbouring towns brought their husbands’ underpants.” St. Ippazio guarantees and strengthens each year the local tradition and the importance of the ancient local variety handed down from generation to generation, which is in danger of being lost if programs to improve and enhance the product are not encouraged. The knowledge and custom of producing the exquisite taproot are mostly entrusted to the elders who with passion and effort continue the tradition by self-producing the pestanaca seed.

ALL THE SAINTS PLUS ONE ( – small group starting September 26 and ending October the 2nd). In Honor of the Holy Doctors of Alberobello.