Red Honey 250gr

Saffron Honey
250 gr JAR

Red Honey - Symphony of Emotions - Elixir of Long Life

With these words – also understood as  synonyms – an ancient recipe has been passed down, or rather whispered, in our family for generations. It seems that its origin dates back to the sixteenth century when about six hundred families of Sienese exiles, after a long siege by the Spanish-Medici army, moved to Montalcino. In this town, known today worldwide especially for its wine and precisely in its Fortress, the Republic of Siena (1555-1559) remained alive. A sort of secret legend attributes the birth of this recipe to those terrible years of siege and famine, up until the peace signed in Cateau Cambrésis between Spain and France, which sanctioned the end of the Republic of Siena and the last bastion of republican freedom in Italy. The great hardship, the lack of food, the enormous efforts due to war resistance were alleviated (slightly or miraculously) by a compound based on honey and saffron. We searched for historical sources of this recipe but the outcome was negative even if the cultivation of saffron in the lands surrounding the homeland of Brunello in that historical period is documented.

It is certain that ours  grandparents and our grandparents' grandparents, after exhausting days of work, accustomed to refresh themselves with what the good housewife managed to find in the cupboard and on the farm – always not enough – loved to finish the meal with red honey spread on a slice of cheese (in the luckiest periods) or bread in the vast majority of cases.

My grandfather also called it Symphony or Elixir “Come on, give me a couple of spoonfuls of Symphony because today I never stopped and the night is long…”.

On winter evenings, near the farmhouse fireplace,  there was always someone who told with a certain amount of malice and also not too veiled allusions that, the evening before each  conception of all children, male and female, of the family for generations, at least one of the two spouses if not both had eaten this food. “ONLY LEGEND, CROOKS,  NOTHING TRUE” the mothers present retorted, laughing.

You will not find this recipe written in ancient texts or in some remote corner of a library or archive, you will have to trust the culinary wisdom told to us, handed down for centuries and our memory because we too will be faithful to tradition and its rules!

With passion, simplicity,  modesty and a lot of enthusiasm we try to bring to your table a Symphony of perfumes and properties that is born in the heart of Val d'Orcia from an ancient and secret recipe…

New Cousins….