There are trees that bend under the weight of fruits that very few, today, still recognize. They are jujubes, red and sweet as wild candies. Medlars, which ripen when everything else has already gone dormant. Azaroles, small and tart, almost disappeared from the markets but still alive in the memories of those with a few decades behind them. They are the forgotten fruits, and Italy is slowly learning to seek them out again.
For generations, these fruits accompanied rural life on the peninsula. They weren't rare delicacies: they were everyday food, folk medicines, and ingredients in homemade jams and liqueurs. The jujube, in particular, was so associated with joy and abundance that it entered common parlance—"to be in jujube"—as an image of pure happiness. Then came modernity, with its uniform shelves and year-round strawberries, and these trees were cut down or simply forgotten in the garden beds.
Today, however, something is moving. Small producers, varietal recovery associations, historical botany enthusiasts, and curious chefs are bringing these fruits back to light. It's not nostalgia for its own sake: it's the understanding that every lost fruit carries with it knowledge, a history, an entire ecosystem.
Our emigrants remember them…
Those who left for America, Australia, Belgium, or Germany brought with them not only their suitcases, but also their seeds, cuttings, and recipes. In many Italian communities abroad, a jujube tree in the garden was a way to avoid completely severing one's roots. A carefully cultivated medlar tree on a balcony in Melbourne or Chicago was a piece of Italy that lived on, far from its homeland. These emigrants, often considered "left behind" with respect to the customs of their host country, proved to be the involuntary custodians of a heritage that Italy was throwing away. Today, it is not uncommon for their grandchildren, returning for visits or permanently returning, to tell of centuries-old trees in family gardens abroad, alive and productive, while in Italy the same varieties are hard to find.
The value of tradition
The rediscovery of forgotten fruits is a reflection on the value of tradition as a compass for the future. A tradition that can adapt, that accepts examination and reinterpretation, that engages with the present without losing its identity. Recovering a jujube tree means reconnecting with a slower way of being in the world, more attentive to nature's cycles, more aware that not everything ancient is obsolete. It also means admitting that progress has sometimes discarded precious things for reasons of pure convenience. Italy is fortunate to possess some of the richest agricultural biodiversity in Europe. Preserving it is a cultural act, even more than an economic one. And perhaps, to rediscover what was lost, we just need to look again at those silent trees waiting at the edges of fields, or in the distant gardens of those who never stopped cultivating them.
