The return of the ancient « white gold » of Sicily, the Bible sweetener who « fell from heaven » to taste and heal

It is a hot and turbulent summer day in the Madonie Mountains of Sicily, a broken range of ridges about 65 km east of Palermo. In a field with Frashër, the buzz of girlfriends is interrupted by a voice. « You came at the right time, » says Giulio Gelardi, a local farmer pointing to a branch of white stripes. « This is the famous mana, » writes BBC, Vittoria Traverso.
Along the bark of each tree there are thick mana lines, a white resin rich in minerals, mentioned in the Bible 17 times, which has been used as a natural sweetener and medical aid for centuries. Manta harvest (the practice of cutting the Fraxinus Ornus tree bark to collect their juices) was once a common practice throughout the Mediterranean. But in the last 80 years, urbanization and industrialization have led to its disappearance.
For the last 30 years, Gelardi has made his mission again put this biblical superfood on our tables and today, this once forgotten juice is being used by innovative chefs and pastries.

Mana is a white resin rich in minerals that has been harvested for more than a millennium (Credit: Vittoria Traverso)

Even if you have never enjoyed Mana, you may have heard of it. The expression « Mana from the sky » refers to a biblical story where a food falls from the sky to feed the Israelis as they passed the Sinai desert. In « Exodus », Mana is described as a « cracked substance as thin as the frost covered on the ground ». While experts disagree which substance refers, namely, this passage, a honey, flame and frozen colored resin called Mana is extracted from the bark of ash trees in the Mediterranean region for more than a millennium.
In the Madonie Mountains, the 40,000-hectare Madonie Nature Park house, the Mana meeting dates back to the 9th century when the island was under Arab rule. During the Renaissance, Sicilian farmers collected this sweet juice, which tastes like sugar, almond shades, and sold to traders from all over the Mediterranean, a very lucrative trade that led the Kingdom of Naples to impose taxes on the 16th century.
By World War II, Mana’s agriculture was a lifestyle for many Sicilian families. Views from 1936 show local farmers collecting the substance, which was usually sold to pharmaceutical companies to extract manitol, a sugar alcohol used as sweetener and diuretic. In the 1950s, scientists found a way to synthesize Manitol, and in the decades that followed, the harvest of the man practically disappeared.
When Gelardi returned to his hometown in Pollina in 1985 after 15 years away, he realized that one of the essential components of his local culture was disappearing. « When I was growing up, everyone knew how to get mana, » he explains. « When I returned, there were fewer than 100 farmers who could still do it. »

Gellari developed a new and more efficient way to harvest Manna (Credit: Vittoria Traverso)

Pollina is a medieval city with 3000 inhabitants, which looks sculpted by the surrounding limestone hills. From a child, Gellari learned to gather Mana in the summer from his parents. « MANA MELLING MADE The whole family, » he explains. Men used handmade hooks to make thin cuts along the bark, women gathered overflowed juice using dry pear stalk, and the children turned the clutter in cylindrical cones called Cannoli, due to their resemblance to the popular Sicilian dessert.
According to Gellard, the most difficult part of collecting the mana is to know when to cut the bark. Ash trees produce juice throughout the year, but produce enough resin to harvest only during the hottest days of the year. Gelardi says that if you cut the bark too early, it can make the trees stop producing mana at all. « To find out that when the time has come to cut it is a unique observation and intuition -based ability, » he says, explaining: « (It is necessary) listening to every plant. »
For example, the leaves that turn from darker green to louder green with yellow signs may mean that a tree has reached the peak of mana production. Notification of cracks in the soil near the roots can also mean that it is ready for harvest, as the plants produce excess juice to overcome dry periods. When the tree looks ready, mana farmers make a shallow cut into the bark and observe the reaction of the plant. If a plant is quite ripe, a small amount of resin will flow from the cut. Farmers can then continue to make deeper engraving, as the small streams of the adhesive mana will flow to the roots.
« Gathering Mana is not something you can learn from a book, » Gelardi explains. « If we do not pass these skills to the next generation, we will lose the centuries -old knowledge of local agriculture. »
A few months after returning to Pollina, Geldi set out to revive the falling tradition. At first, most locals did not expect his « Renaissance of Mana » enthusiastically. « My friends thought I was crazy. They said Mana was a thing of the past, » he says. Undecided, Gellari spent months learning everything he defeated about it.

Nicola Fiasconaro Pastryery in Castelbuono sells flakes Mana (Credit: Alamy)

He spent time with older farmers to improve his skills to be valid and visited the Palermo Public Library to study Mana. « I knew that the mana was used in place as a sweetener, moisturizing and diuretic, » he says. « But I learned that it can also be used to treat food intoxication, a variety of skin diseases, arthritis and cold symptoms. »
Gelardi also began to understand how Mana shaped local geography and culture. For example, Gibilmanna, a nearby hill where a famous sanctuary is located, owes her name to the Arabic words « Gibil » (Mal) and « Manna ». Local expressions are also formed by mana, such as local phrases, « Vivere di Miel and Manna » (« Living with Honey and Mana »), which means living a rich life.
In 1986, Gelardi began distributing to tourists staying at a nearby resort, pamphlets containing facts about Mana. « People were amazed at the healing properties of Mana and its impact on local culture, » he recalled. Since the 1990s, he led tournaments that demonstrated how to wear mana for international travelers. « They started seeing it as our local superfood, » he says.
The mana consists mainly of mulberry, a sweet natural crystal ingredient, as well as minerals such as potassium, magnesium and calcium. According to Vivienne Spadaro, a professor of botany at the University of Palermo, this thick white resin, can be used as a dietary supplement for mineral reintegration, especially potassium, and as the basis for some medicines. « Manna has been used to treat constipation, cough, sore throat and skin wounds due to its decongestive and soothing properties, » she says. And because of the low glycemic index, Spadaro says some mana can be used as sweeteners for people with diabetes or those who follow hypocaloric diets.
While running Mana’s tournaments, Gellari developed a more efficient way to collect the substance with much less risk of bark or insect pollution. He created a technique of « clean mana » by climbing a small aluminum mouth to the tree so that the mana flows away from the trunk along a fishing line adjacent to the throat. This allowed Gelard to double his manufacture of Mana.
In the coming years, Gellari began to sell his manna to the ovens and pastries, who included him in everything, ranging from canol, wafers, flakes and chocolates. He also sells the manna at the pharmacy to make laxatives, mineral supplements and skin products. In recent years French skin care companies Biotherm and Yves Roche have used it to make skin moisturizers.
In 2002, Mana from Madonie was announced an ingredient protected by Slow Food, an international organization that promotes endangered food traditions. By the mid -2000s, Mana became a sought after ingredient for local chefs and pastry.

BBC/ Vittoria Traverso
Prepared by: Albert Vataj