Bread as a fruit

1Bread as a fruit

Martin was born in Bochum, as its inhabitants call it: "the rainiest city in Germany" where the cool winters are long, and the summers are short. He had a wife, Roberta, and he was working as a sales person in a local office. One day, he decided to devote himself to his passion, so they left everything behind and moved to the sunnier South, to the wife’s hometown, Appignano del Tronto. They started to farm, but not in the conventional way, because they both felt passionate not just for agriculture but also for the environment. They put sustainability, especially re-naturalization, at the center of their farming method, making their neighbours immediately curious (maybe even suspicious) - why would anybody want to plant a forest on their most productive land? No one believed that instead of exploiting the soil, Martin and Roberta wanted to experiment with finding a delicate balance between nutritious and healthy products and economy. So as a first step, they brought back the native trees and shrubs that had once been cut to restore the original environmental balance.

Now, more than two decades later, their hard work has borne its precious fruit: the farm they own, Valle San Martino, is a very popular producer of home made goods. They bake and twice a week deliver bread and pastries to the surrounding areas. Anyone can visit their farm and admire the organic wood oven they use. It’s not a surprise that the delicious bites are baked by the fire of wild cherry wood which comes from controlled forest cutting or pruning from their hedges and local olive groves. From the comments on the local websites, it’s clear that the donuts with green anise seeds and the chestnut shortbread biscuits are the absolute favourites. People are also passionate about the different sourdough breads they make (with brown rice, millet or barley), just like the rice focaccia and the rusks with raisins. Their secret probably lies in the carefully selected ingredients they use (you can’t find refined sugar in their desserts), or perhaps it’s the utmost care taken to make them - or simply the taste of the products, the “flavor of the past”.

the delicious bites are baked by the fire of wild cherry wood which comes from controlled forest cutting

The big bonfire of La Processione dell’anno vecchio