03. The collection of manna
The collection of manna takes place eight days after the first incision and then continues, during the season, with intervalsabout 6 days for the southern ash cultivars (Fraxinus angustifolia subsp. angustifolia) and, for the flowering ash (F. ornus) cultivars, the first harvest is usually done after about three weeks, the second after ten days, and the following every week.
Manna is very fragile, fears humidity and is dissolved and dispersed in water, so it frequently happens that you have to harvest earlier than expected, trying to predict and prevent the negative effects of summer storms on the production of manna.
The ash growerand family members, especially the elderly, scrutinize the sky with wisdom and attention, trying to catch any signs of atmospheric disturbances in the color, shape and size of the clouds, in the color assumed by the setting sun and in the blowing of the winds.
The expert mannaluòru carries out the harvest in the hottest hours of the day. The Sicilian heat favors the detachment of the manna and prevents the loss of juice in the process of condensation. It is generally carried out at the end of the barrel engraving operations.
The "cannoli" are first collected and detached by means of a flexible wooden arch, which stretches a thin metal wire or, in recent years, nylon and carefully placed in special baskets or other suitable containers.
Immediately afterwards, the residues still attached to the trunk that constitute the so-called "manna in scrap" are scraped with a metal shovel, with a wooden handle (in dialect called rrasùla), making them fall into a tin box, suitably concave in the part to be placed to the trunk (called scàtula).
Then, we move on to the collection of the manna in the lot from the concave of the prickly pear blades, agave leaves or from the shards ofterracotta.
Manna is very fragile, fears humidity and is dissolved and dispersed in water, so it frequently happens that you have to harvest earlier than expected, trying to predict and prevent the negative effects of summer storms on the production of manna.The ash growerand family members, especially the elderly, scrutinize the sky with wisdom and attention, trying to catch any signs of atmospheric disturbances in the color, shape and size of the clouds, in the color assumed by the setting sun and in the blowing of the winds.
The expert mannaluòru carries out the harvest in the hottest hours of the day. The Sicilian heat favors the detachment of the manna and prevents the loss of juice in the process of condensation. It is generally carried out at the end of the barrel engraving operations.
The "cannoli" are first collected and detached by means of a flexible wooden arch, which stretches a thin metal wire or, in recent years, nylon and carefully placed in special baskets or other suitable containers.
Immediately afterwards, the residues still attached to the trunk that constitute the so-called "manna in scrap" are scraped with a metal shovel, with a wooden handle (in dialect called rrasùla), making them fall into a tin box, suitably concave in the part to be placed to the trunk (called scàtula).
Then, we move on to the collection of the manna in the lot from the concave of the prickly pear blades, agave leaves or from the shards ofterracotta.