Florinis peppers at dimitrisskarmoutsos.gr

Naumidis peppers

Description

Platika, the mansion    

It is red with thick flesh, relatively short, since its height does not exceed thirteen centimeters on average, it has a sweet taste, it thrives in dry microclimates and its roots are in the prefecture of Florini. The reason for platica, the authentic Florinis pepper, which in recent years has been claiming its identity among dozens of hybrid variants that appropriate its name and are circulating on the European market. From 2007, the Naoumidis family, with the aim of highlighting and promoting the original form of the princess of vegetables, produces hand-made products that have as raw material exclusively the local varieties of pepper.

Specifically, in Agios Panteleimonas of Prefecture of Florini, at an altitude of about six hundred meters, cultivate forty acres of red pepper, which they process and pack in their stone-built unit, a living example of a harmonious combination of traditional architecture and modern facilities. In fact, in order to ensure the quality and authenticity of the specific variety, they maintain their own nursery. "We wouldn't be able to talk about authentic pepper, and right now we're fighting to register the designation of origin, if we didn't have our own seeds", the company's export manager, thirty-three-year-old Petros Naoumidis, explains to me, and goes on to say that "hybrid or mutant seeds are completely out of our philosophy. If you sell a fresh Florin-type pepper to a grandmother here, she will put a cage on your head".

The process begins in April, where on a small piece of land, close to fifty square meters, they place the seeds in parnicia, that is, in thick, long strips, and cover them with soil and peat to soften them. The seeds come from dried peppers from the previous harvest, which are exposed for a month in the sun so that the white seeds draw as much of the ingredients as they can from the flesh of the vegetable. Around the middle of May, when the plants have reached fifteen points, they are moved very carefully, so as not to injure their roots, into already plowed fields. There, they remain for almost a hundred days, without being sprinkled, since the dry climate does not favor the development of diseases. In July the first green peppers appear, in August they slowly turn red and in early September they are ready for harvest.

Unlike pepper hybrids, which yield approximately six tons per hectare, but their cultivation is supported by the use of (pesto)chemicals, platica yields range from five hundred and fifty kilograms to two tons per hectare. "Essentially, it's a wild crop since we don't use any chemicals", μου επισημαίνει ο Πέτρος και συμπληρώνει πως "Our production is completely organic, but we prefer not to mention it at the exhibitions we go to because now the concept of organic has expanded too much. In our view, organic is synonymous only with pure, natural crops".

The export network, apart from Russia, mainly includes central European countries, such as Germany, Belgium, Austria, Holland, Estonia, France, England, Sweden, Czech Republic, Denmark, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Cyprus, our clientele consists of majority of it from delicatessen shops, i.e. from people who appreciate the value of handmade. 

Beyond the their natural cultivation, the biggest advantage of Naumidis peppers is that they do not undergo industrial processing. In other words, they are not abused in the burners to be roasted or put in washing machines to be peeled. The baking is carried out to them barbeque and lasts twenty minutes, while peeling is done by hand. This stage is the most important part of the overall processing and here lies the secret to the freshness of pepper products. "Imagine that after peeling there are two millimeters of the pepper's flesh left, we have to be very careful in how we cook them", Petros explains to me. Then, they are placed in jars, with a little oil and garlic, and boiled together for an hour. Due to this special way of pasteurization, the pepper keeps its taste unchanged, all its aromas and of course its nutrients, such as lycopene and vitamin C (eight times the content of the corresponding orange).

Even tastier than the roasted pepper, is the Mustard pepper, one of the many local recipes that the Naumidis family is trying to save, in the restaurant they have been running since 1972 across from Lake Vegoritida. Mustopiperia is a raw fresh pepper, which is stuffed with cabbage, celery, carrot and garlic and then cured in a mixture of equal amounts of vinegar (from sour black grape) and must. Equally tasty and of high nutritional value are the rest of the products, which either come from a different variety (tomato pepper, small hot pepper, etc.) or have undergone another treatment, e.g. dried pepper or hot pepper sauce. However, whatever product you try, one thing is certain. Their deliciousness will force you to redefine your relationship with food and to look again for handmade products, away from the logic of profit and closer to homemade tastes.