U Pumaruricchiu (Cherry tomatoes) print - 2022 edition

2022 limited edition prints from the 2016 Wealth of the Land exhibition.

Created from the streets of La Vucciria market in Palermo 2014-2016, these prints celebrate the fruit and vegetables of the streets. The markets, established by Arabs more than 1200 years ago sell seasonal, mostly regionally grown in Sicily.

Each of the images in the show were hand drawn digital images, based on a series of photographs taken from different angles and light sources. They each took from 40-60 hours to make.

The work in Wealth of the Land was exhibited in Palermo, Darwin, Melbourne and Sydney

Limited edition print of 19
30cm x 30cm / 45cm x 45cm
Digital print on Ilford paper
Unframed

A pdf of the Wealth of the Land catalogue will be emailed to you on purchase.

Cherry tomatoes
Strictly speaking, these cherry tomatoes do not have a palermitanan word, as they are a hybrid introduced in the 1980s. Indeed any “new” fruit or vegetable introduced to Sicily after Word War II is unlikely to have acquired a dialect word. According to Francesco Pusateri, very small fruit varieties were grown in Sicily: u pumaroru a pruniddu and pumaroru a carrubbedda, respectively plum-shaped and carob-shaped tomatoes. Typically, varieties of small tomatoes were indicated generically by the term “pumaruricchiu”.

U Pumaruricchiu
Stu tipu ri pumaroru ‘unn’havi nnomu sicilianu picchì avi picca ca veni curtivatu. Prima c’era u pumaroru a pruniddu e pumaroru a carrubbedda c’avevanu a forma ri ‘na pruna
rrapparina u primu e l’autru, inveci, ri ‘na carrubbedda allungata. A fini, tuttu u pumaroru nicu si chiamava “pumaruricchiu”.

I pomodori ciliegini
Rigorosamente parlando, questi ciliegini non hanno un riferimento in dialetto palermitano, dato che sono un ibrido introdotto negli anni ’80. Infatti, ogni “nuova“ frutta o verdura introdotta dopo la seconda guerra mondiale è improbabile che abbia acquisito la relativa parola in dialetto palermitano. Secondo Francesco Pusateri, le varietà della frutta molto piccola sono state coltivate in Sicilia: pumaroru a pruniddu e pumaroru a carrubbedda, rispettivamente pomidoro a forma di mela e a forma di carruba. Genericamente, le varietà dei pomodorini sono state indistamente indicate con il termine “pumaruricchiu”.