Acacia Honey
This is a very delicate variety of honey, very sweet and kid's honey of choice. It is the most sough after honey in our part of the world because of its purity and transparency of colour. This honey is harvested way before the end of the acacia blossom period to avoid its contamination with other blossoms.
Colour:very fair, almost colorless
Crystallisation: absent, liquid
Scent: very light and similar to the scent of the flowers from which it derives.
Flavour: definitely sweet and slightly acidic. The aroma is vanilla like and very delicate, it is not persistent and has no aftertaste.
Eat with: this honey variety is so delicate in colour, scent and flavour that it can be used on almost every recipe. Its high fructose content make it ideal to sweeten drinks, yogurt and fruits in lieu of the traditional sugar. It can also be added, in small quantities, to the bread dough, to heighten the colour and scent of the bread's crust. It is also often recommended by paediatricians as an additive to milk from twelth month on.
Curiosity
The acacia is native of North America. It is considered an intrusive variety. It grows almost anywhere, and it grows very fast. Its bloom is spectacular both in colour (mostly rich white, entirely covering the tree as if it was dusted with delicate snowflakes) and in scent (very pervasive). For ten days, the times it takes for the bloom to succeed, the forest resonate with the buzzing of the bees.
The acacia tree blooms in May, a month with very uncertain weather. It is a very risky harvest. A stronger than usual thunderstorm may reduce the harvest to noughts, whereas light rain will keep the bees away and achieve the same. A windy weather will also keep the bees in the beehives and dry the nectar. So does the cold. In other words, by the thing when available: you might not gat any for as long time.
Chestnut Honey
This is a very atypical variety of honey: not sweet, with a very intense and aromatic savour. It leaves a slightly bitter aftertaste. Appreciated by those who do not particularly like sugar :
Colour: dark amber
Crystallization: absent (liquid) or almost absent with large crystals
Scent: strong and biting, of wood, and slightly tannic
Flavour: very similar to the scent, initially biting, then the slight bitterness prevails
Eat with: ideal on a slice of buttered whole bread for breakfast. As a condiment with ricotta cheese as well as seasoned cheeses. Very savoury when coated over oven cooked roast beef (coat at the end of the roasting.
Curiosity
Romans brought to Italy the chestnut trees from one of the land they conquered: the Middle East. But it was not until the 1800's that the trees started to literally blanket our mountains, hills and valleys. For more than one hundred years the chestnut has been one of the main staple foods of this part of Italy, to be slowly abandoned after World War II. It is only over the last few years that the chestnut tree and the chestnuts are regaining some of their lost popularity. In Roero the chestnut tree blooms in June: the flower is a long yellowish string with a stingy smell. Sticky to the touch and rich in pollen and nectar: that's one very good reason for the bees to love it. As matter of fact they go crazy about the chestnut bloom and become nervous and aggressive around the beehive. They collect the nectar untiringly up to late at night.
Forest Honey (Melata)
Contrary to most other varieties of honey, the woodland one, characterized by a full bodied and intense taste, reminiscent of caramel, is not produced by the bees from the nectar of blooms, but by the sugar found in small droplets, called "melata", generated by an insect, the "Metcalfa Pruinosa", which finds its home in the woodland of Roero. This insect sucks the lymph out of the leafs and blooms of our trees and exudes the excess of sugar as droplet that the bees find on the tree's leafs.
Colour:dark, almost black, with greenish reflection
Crystallisation: generally absent, some, large ones when the honey is more that 1 year old.
Scent: of medium intensity, of vegetables, of fruits, of caramel, of green tomato marmalade, and of cooked marmalade.
Flavour: of medium intensity, short in sugar, of malt, of cooked vegetables, of dry prunes, of sugar of cane. Very dense and persistent.
Eat with: this is so different a type of honey to attract people who usually do not include honey in their diet. It can be used to sweeten and aromatize warm milk and other dairy products since its savour is more intense than that of the sugar of cane. It is also be used in lieu of caramel in all recipe which include this sweetener.
Curiosity
When one thinks of bees, and their incessant quest for sugar, we think of nectar. But plants and flowers do not produce only nectar, nor do the bees only quest for it. Almost all trees produce most of their sugar for their flowers and fruits. But the lymph is also sugary, and it is from the lymph that the little insect, the "Metcalfa Pruinosa", sucks the sugar from and then expel the excess in droplets. Therefore even trees and bushes, such as the oak, the beech, the maple, the willow, and the fir, trees which produce not fruits, become an important sources of food for the little insect and thus for the bees. The Melata honey is produced in summer, in the month of July and August. The "Metcalfa Pruinosa" is an American insect introduced accidentally in Europe: it arrived in Roero about 15 tears ago. This insect has an incredible ability to adapt to diverse environments, finds its nutrients from almost all type of trees. Unfortunately the trees are weakened by the insect and become more susceptible to diseases.
