Ross Recommends: The Land Where Lemons Grow by Helena Attlee

I have recently come back from a short visit to Verona, in Italy, and am changed by the experience. In particular, I was struck by the intentionality and slowness that was dedicated to food and how that relationship felt in stark contrast, even antagonistic, to our own fast paced, on the go, wrapped in plastic and ready in an instant food culture. I have been to Italy a few times before but for some reason, perhaps being older and more in love with eating than ever, it was this most recent time, wandering the marble lined streets of Verona’s old town alternating between sips of dark espresso, burrata topped spaghetti, spoonful’s of intensely pastel pistachio gelato and pizzas bejewelled with olives, that I realised my relationship to food can be something different, something entirely more fulfilling.

On returning from this trip I was sick, through and through, with an Italian obsession and so, of course, promptly bought a variety of books on Italian food and history. While I have been slow in exploring their content, I absolutely have to shout about one in this blog. Helena Attlee’s The Land Where Lemons Grow is magnificent and oozes citrus sunshine through all of its 208 pages. I’ve been aware of this book for some time and was initially intrigued, prior to my Italian awakening as I’ve decided to call it for dramatic effect, at the idea of a book, centred around citrus fruit, that claimed to blend science, history, literature and recipes. It seemed a lot to juggle. All my worry however has been proven in vain, as Attlee handles each topic, sub-topic and niche with passion and deft enthusiasm.

I learned so much reading this book and, standing as a testimony to Atlee’s capability as a writer, I didn’t feel like I was being taught; I was simply on a journey, both up and down the present geography of Italy but also back in time through a rich agricultural and deeply human history spanning Eurasia and the Americas. Atlee blends together events of different places and times, creating a living history so vivid you can smell the blood oranges as they are sliced open at the foot of Sicily’s mountains. This interweaving of themes, by the end of the book, seemed to me to represent citrus fruits as a whole. Unlike the vast majority of plant species, individual members of the citrus family are able to freely cross-pollinate. They do this so prolifically that simply planting two citrus cousins in the same vicinity results in a unique amalgam of genetic material, producing a new fruit with a distinct look, smell and taste. I was shocked then to realise that all the citrus varieties on earth stem from this crossing of three original fruits: Pomelos, Citrons and Mandarins.

These three core citrus, as I suppose they could be called, first took route in Asia, before being spread into Europe, particularly southern Italy, by Arabic explorers in the early years of the first millennium AD. It is in this thousand year story that Atlee maps out, following conquest after conquest and invasion after invasion, how Italy grew, and declined, as the worlds leading force of citrus; a journey that encompasses Italian migration to the USA, the foundation of the Mafia and the British Navy’s flailing battle with scurvy. Like I said, Atlee tackles a lot in this book and, in my opinion, flawlessly succeeds. Each chapter is also accompanied by detailed maps, giving a wonderful grounding to the text.

Not that I needed any convincing, but this book has made it an absolute impossibility for me not to return to Italy and seek out the glowing citrus treasures produced there. I think you should join me. To purchase a copy, please click here