“Yesterday we cooked this!”, Enrico tells me, standing next to his mother, pointing to the picture of saffron risotto displayed between the first class cupboards. A recipe that has now become part of our daily table, popular in our area, the Sunday dish of our grandparents. Why so much emotion in front of the photo?
The discovery of saffron, the meticulous work that starts from a flower and then become a spice that arrives on our tables, is a surprise full of emotionally and cognitively absorbing experiences for the children and adults, actors in this project.
The saffron in question is an excellence of Canton Ticino: “Loverciano Saffron” cultivated in the fields of the Sant’Angelo Foundation in Loverciano, a local organisation with which My School Ticino has been collaborating for several years.
This year, the class of Michela Guglielmo, head of the Special School sector of the Foundation, started a project with our first class to study the production phases of this unique spice (insert photo of the production stages). A precious product due to its limited production, which requires patient manual work that determines its great value so much so that it deserves the nickname ‘Red Gold’.
The chefs are delighted to embellish their dishes by offering the petals or the entire flower of Crocus sativus as decorations and garnishes. Also not to be ignored the use of dried petals for domestic ornamental purposes, compositions, potpourri as well as for making candles and natural soaps: they are a resource with a thousand uses. Finally, the flower, deprived of its precious stigmas, can be used as a natural fertiliser.
Used for its beneficial properties, it has long been known and used by populations in various parts of the world and is strongly rooted in the Canton Ticino.
That is why we ask you, dear readers, to donate to the children in class 1 the recipes that you will surely find among the memories and traditions of your families, we will welcome them as a precious treasure, a source of cultural (but also agricultural!) and of genuine learning.
(EN) Crocus sativus, on Plants of the World Online, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew .
(IT)Gerardo Addari, Saffron, 2009.
(IT) Dossier on saffron published in issue 60 (2016) of Agrifoglio magazine (pp. 8-23).
