Over the past few days, food plant enthusiasts have returned to search for the rariceddaor the wild radish (also called horseradish o rafanistro in Italian), a plant known and appreciated since ancient times. It is one of the first wild herbs to be harvested in the Ragusa area after the first autumn rains, between November and December, when the soil becomes soft and workable again.
Its recognition is rather simple, although the botanical description in Wikipedia may appear complex:
"[...] The leaves are also hairy-hispid. The shape of the leaves is pinnate-lycate with 5 or more segments and are petiolate. The terminal segment is lanceolate. The lateral ones are smaller in size [...]'.
In simpler words, the leaves of the raricedda are reminiscent of a bird's feather, with jagged margins and segments that shrink as they approach the petiole. The plant produces white flowers composed of four petals arranged in a cross and can reach a height of between 20 and 80 centimetres.
In the past, the edible herbs such as the raricedda represented a vital resource: they were considered valuable because they guaranteed sustenance in the most difficult times. Not surprisingly, it was said:
'Prima ri Natali, né friddu né ffami, doppu Natali friddu e ffami'
('Before Christmas neither cold nor hungry, after Christmas cold and hungry').
This popular proverb recalled how, after the Christmas holidays, food supplies tended to run out, making the following months particularly hard for those who lived on little.
The poet Vann'Antò (pseudonym of Giovanni Antonio Di Giacomo), born in Ragusa in 1891 and died in Messina in 1960, described this plant in his verses. The son of a miner, he experienced first-hand the hardships and poverty that marked the two world wars. In his poems, the raricedda becomes a symbol of survival and dignity: through his green stems, Vann'Antò recounts the misery of the people with a gaze full of humanity and truth.
