CioKarrua - carrube e derivati

It is sure that carob tree existed like spontaneous tree in the eastern mediterranean basin. its growing started during the time of greek, who introduced it into Sicily. But it were arabs who spread it throughout Marocco and Spain.
Other scholars attest that carob spreading was due to phoenician people ( from Lebanon) considered the most ancient colonizers in Sicily.
The “Italian Agrarian Encyclopedia” states that carob fruit for its characteristics, was largely appreciated and used by phoenician people.
During the middle ages arabs spread the tree throughout the mediterranean basin.

At the end of the middle ages carob tree was surely grown in all the mediterranean propitius lands.
Many european christian peoples used its fruit to prepare medicines and sweets.

In the 2nd middle of the eighteenth century, interesting news about carob cultivation in Sicily were given from the abbe’ sestini who catalogued the lands of Modica, Ragusa, Scicli, Comiso, Noto, Avola the most propitious places.
During that time sicilian carob production was valued in 60 “cantara”(quintals) per year: 40.000 cantara of carob were exported through the ports of Augusta, Siracusa, Noto and Scoglitti; the remainder was used to prepare medecines, to nourish the cattle and it was also the main poor people food.

Nowadays carob tree is present in the south of Spain, in the Balearic Islands, in Portugal, in Algeria, Tunisia, Marocco, in Palestine, in Lebanon and in Italy.
In Italy it is grown in “Latium”, “Campania”, “Apulia”, “Basilicata”, “Calabria”, “Sardegna” but above all in Sicily, the richest region in carob.
Sicilian growing is mostly concentrated in the province of Ragusa that gives the 72% of all carob italian production.
The carob tree overlooks all over the plain of Ragusa where together with the “masseria” constitutes a representative of the rural architecture.

What is carob?
In botany carob is “ceratonia siliqua” and derives its name from the arabic “kharrub”. It is an age-old and evergreen tree.
Its fruit, the siliqua, is a leguminous belonging to the family of “cesalpinee”, to the subfamily of “cassie” and to the “ceratonia” genus.
It begins to produce fruits two years after the graft (up to 10 kilos). as the years go by, the tree becomes strong, huge, leafier and more fruitful. Therefore it produces lots of fruit in its old age and a few in its youth: this feature distinguishes this plant from the other ones.
After 200 years it becomes enormous (over 20 metres) and its branches can reach 15 metres. its wonderful foliage is constituted by deep green leaves and the trunk is tortuous, rugous and can even reaches one metre of diameter. The grey-coloured bark is thick, rough and it presents a cracked surface at the end of the trunk; the roots are very large and tortuous. the branches are supple and twisted with more or less big warts by the flowers.
The leaves are persistent, composite, symmetric, oval (from 4 up to 6 centimetres long and from 3 up to 5 centimetres wide). They are also smooth and glabrous; its colour is deep green in the upper part, light green in the lower one. The inflorescence comes out in the older part of the branches already deprived of leaves. The peduncle and the light-red-coloured rachis is from 6 to 11 centimetres long and present a different number of flowers without corolla.
The period of blooming of the carob tree is very long, it starts in august, continues till november and reaches its apex in september – october. The fruits need almost one year to ripen.
The picking takes place during the last days of august and in september, when the tree has just the flowers of the next production. The fruit is lengthened and flattened: about 10 centimetres in length and 3 in breadth. It weighs more or less 20 grams. In the inner part it contains approximately 10 seeds in the past used as unit of measure: the carat.
When summer draws near , carob’s fruits ghange the light green colour into brown. This change starts from the end of the pod and gradually extend up to the peduncle. Totally black and almost withered the fruit is ready to be picked.

The carob silique is generally made up of 10% of seeds and 90% of pulp. The pulp has 5.80 of proteins, 1.01 of fats, 68.30 of nitrogenous extracts and 6.30 of cellulose. The nitrogenous extracts are substances made up of saccharose, glucose and sugars.
The most important parts of the siliqua are the pulp and the seeds but before its using, it is necessary to mill and divide them.

Carob variety
The female carob varieties present in sicily are: “latinissima”,“racemosa”, “morescona”, “saccarata”, “falcata”.
An important hermaphrodite variety is the “ermafrodita tantillo” cultivated in the Contrada of Margione in Frigintini, village near Modica, where “CioKarrua” company is based.