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Sicilian Manna: A Sweet Gift of NatureAuthor(s): anna tasca lanzaSource: Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture, Vol. 5, No. 1 (Winter 2005), pp. 38-40Published by: University of California PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1525/gfc.2005.5.1.38 .

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God said to Moses, “I will make bread rain from Heaven

and the people will pick as much as they need, day after 

day.” Moses said to the people, “On Friday cook what you

have to cook, boil what you have to boil, and put it aside

 for Saturday to be able to respect the end of the week,

dedicated to God, without working.”

For forty years manna fell upon the desert to feed the

children of Israel. Every morning, except for Saturdays, the

Jews woke up to find a layer of dew covering the soil around

their camp. The dew dissolved, leaving seeds that looked like

white coriander and tasted like bread kneaded with honey and

carob. This was called “manna,” the “bread of Heaven” or

the “bread of angels.” No one ever doubted it was a miracle.

Did manna really fall from heaven? Although the Greek

botanist Theophrastus had noted the existence of natural

manna in the third century b.c and Pliny had described it

in his first-century Natural History, for centuries theologians

continued to puzzle over the meaning of heavenly manna.

 As for natural manna, there are several different kinds: the

desert tree Tamarisk mannifera produces tamarisk manna

after being infested by certain insects; two types of thorny

desert shrubs yield camel’s-thorn manna; and lichen manna

comes from a special lichen that grows in the desert.

Less well known is the manna produced by a flowering

ash tree, Frassino angustifolia, which produces a sticky

sap. Frassino angustifolia Vahl. still grows exclusively in

the Madonie Mountains of Sicily, east of Palermo, and is

especially prized among Mediterranean species for its phar-

macological value. The local climate around the towns of Pollina, Castellbuono, and Geraci is ideal for the ash trees,

which grow up to twenty meters tall. In these mountains

hot summer days give way to cool nights. Though Sicilian

manna has been cultivated here for roughly one thousand

years, the techniques for harvesting and the traditions

surrounding it have scarcely changed.

Once I learned that manna was still to be found in my

homeland, I set out to discover more about what the locals

call “this sweet gift of nature.” With three good friends I headed

for Pollina to experience the sagra (festival) of the manna

that is held every year on August 29. Pollina is a charming

town of only two thousand souls (many former residents have

left for lack of work). The streets, which are well kept, are

too narrow for cars. They spiral out from a pirate tower, one

of the many Saracen towers built along the Sicilian coast toguard against marauders. The town’s fifteenth-century cathe-

dral is dedicated to Saints John and Paul and is adorned

inside and out with marble sculptures by Antonello Gaggini.

 Although we had heard that there would be free manna

and pizza for all, none was in sight, so we walked over to

the Museum of Manna. It was a disappointment—the only

exhibits showed the tools used to extract the sap, similar to

those still in use today. Back outside, a spectacular sunset lit

up the Bay of Cefalù. A tall young man, with a long beard

framing his face, was making his way up the hill through

the crowds. He was impossible to miss. I instinctively knew

that this was Giulio Gelardo, the manna man, who would

tell me everything I needed to know.

Until the 1950s manna production supported hundreds

of families, including Giulio’s, in the towns of Pollina,

Castelbuono, and Geraci. Giulio told me that his father

didn’t want him to be a harvester, so he was sent to univer-

sity in Milan. Giulio watched from afar as fewer and fewer

people worked the sap. By the 1980s only the old people

were still practicing this ancient Sicilian tradition, and the

trees were beginning to die. Giulio didn’t want the gathering

of manna to become just another souvenir of the past, so

he decided to return to Pollina to learn as much as he couldfrom his father. When he wasn’t in the fields, he read every-

thing he could find about manna, including the stories of 

Moses in the desert.

Frassino augustifolia grows wild in campi, or groves;

the trees are also cultivated in orchards, irregularly spaced

on steep hillsides in the narrow valleys with an average

density of 280 trees of varying ages per hectare. The soil

under the trees is not treated with either natural or chemical

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origins | anna tasca lanza

gastronomica: the journal of food and culture, vol.5, no. 1, pp.38–40, issn 1529-3262. © 2005 by the regents of the university of california. all rights reserved. please direct all requests forpermission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the university of california press ’s rights and permissions website, at www.ucpress.edu/journals/rights.htm.

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fertilizers, because the more barren the soil, the more

manna the trees will produce.

Giulio said that the manna harvest typically begins in

the third week of July when the tree is “in love”—when its

leaves turn yellow and begin to look dry. Harvesters cut into

the largest veins of the trunk with a special curved cutter

called a mannarolo, which looks like a knife used for opening

oysters. On contact with the air, the sap crystallizes almostimmediately into a sort of stalactite called a cannolo. At first

the sap is violet and very bitter, but the air and the Sicilian

sun dry it, and it turns sweet. The cannoli are harvested with

a curved tool called an archetto. At the bottom of the tree,

paddles of prickly pears are positioned to receive the manna-

cannolo. Unlike plastic or metal, the prickly pear won’t

affect the flavor of the manna. At harvest time the tree trunks

are striped with white sap, with green pads of prickly pear at

their feet. Each tree usually produces two or three, but some-

times as much as six, kilos of manna. The remaining sap is

harvested by scraping the trunk, though this is the lowest

grade. The only threat is rain, which dissolves the sap.

Throughout history manna has been used primarily as apharmaceutical. Doctors in Greece and Rome believed that

it could enhance the virtues of any medical treatment, and

physicians in the fifteenth-century Salernitan School touted

its medicinal properties. Natural manna contains mannite,

organic acids, glucose, and levulose, as well as a minor com-

ponent that has recently been identified as cumarine; the

properties of manna are such that conventional medicine

is looking at it again with renewed interest. Manna is a mild

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 Above: Tapping an ash tree for manna.courtesy of anna tasca lanza

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laxative that is safe for children, pregnant women, and the

elderly. It is also commonly used in cosmetics for its skin-

smoothing properties. Manufacturers are now showing

interest in the tree itself, which may prove useful for refor-

estation projects as well as for yielding excellent wood for

fine cabinetry.

Until the 1950s manna was exported from Sicily to theItalian mainland in huge quantities, mainly for the produc-

tion of bitters and liqueurs like Fernet Branca and Amaro

 Averna. But chemical substitutes were increasingly used to

make the drinks, and today, because of very limited produc-

tion, manna has become quite expensive and is no longer

an important export.

 As a food, manna is a natural sweetener and a good sugar

substitute for diabetics and dieters. In the book of Numbers,

verse 11:7, it is written that the Jews milled the manna into

flour by crushing it with a mortar and pestle. They then

kneaded this manna flour and baked it into flatbread. Mannabread is described in the Bible as tasting like pastry made

with oil. Many centuries later, Théodore Tronchin, a physi-

cian who lived in Geneva from 1709 to 1781, became famous

for treating Voltaire with la marmelade de Tronchin, a

manna marmalade, which helped the writer during the last

years of his life.

I was determined to find out how manna is used in

Sicilian cooking today. But despite my best efforts, I was

able to track down only one source: Nicola Fiasconaro and

his brothers, confectioners from Castelbuono.1 Their spe-

cialty is a panettone-like sweet bread called mannetto, made

with flour, butter, egg yolks, sugar, and manna. They also

make a manna nougat called torroncini all manna. However,

they cannot list manna as an ingredient on the label because

it is categorized as a “nonexistent” food item and is therefore

illegal according to Italian labelling laws.

The only printed recipe I’ve ever found for manna is

for another nougat-like candy, mann al-sama from Iraq,

published in Delights from the Garden of Eden.2 Author

Nawal Nasrallah notes that preparing manna for consump-

tion is time consuming. It must be boiled and purified

before being stored in pots or shaped into small cakes that

will keep for years. In Iraq manna is flavored with cardamom

or mixed with pistachios, almonds, or walnuts, whereas

the Sicilian torroncini all manna is made with almonds or

hazelnuts, or a mixture of the two. At the sagra in Pollina, I tried my hand at harvesting

and was allowed to keep as much manna as I gathered. I

also bought quite a bit from Giulio, which was much more

expensive. Each piece looked like a miniature pale-amber

stalactite. I kept the manna in a wicker basket at my cooking

school, where it was the object of great attraction: my stu-

dents liked to try it in the evening and report any “success”

at breakfast. But even without its laxative properties, manna

is a pleasure to eat, with a sweet taste like honey and carob.

It is slightly crunchy but dissolves immediately in the mouth.

Much remains to be discovered on my beautiful island. Age-old traditions continue to be lost, but thanks to the

efforts of the Sicilian chapter of Slow Food, we are not only

rediscovering these traditions but also working to preserve

them. Now that manna has been designated part of Slow

Food’s Presidium project, scientists are researching ways to

improve the crop. The renewed interest in manna may yield

a new market in which income will once again rain down

from afar. But even without the income, the sweet taste of 

Sicilian manna will once again be with us, along with the

hope that our traditions will remain alive. Surely this is the

real manna from heaven.g

notes

1. www.fiasconaro.com

2. Nawal Nasrallah, Delights from the Garden of Eden: A Cookbook and a Historyof the Iraqi Cuisine (Bloomington, in: 1st Books Library, 2003).

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