June 2004 ARCHIVES of Andy's Life on
the Farm Shows
June 11th
Capers
This is Andrew Griffin of Mariquita Farm with Life On The Farm. Capers
are flower buds of the Mediterranean shrub Capparis spinosa preserved
in vinegar. The pickling process brings out capric acid lending a unique
tang to everything capers end up in. Caper are cultivated on a large
scale in Spain, Italy, and France. Here, where capers ought to grow
well, I had never even seen them outside of a bottle.
Betty Van Dyke cultivates a few caper bushes at her family's orchard
near Gilroy and she invited me to come see them. Capparis spinosa means
spiny caper but Betty's plants were mercifully spineless. Her family
comes from the Croatian island of Vis in the Adriatic, just across the
water from Italy, and so do her capers.. She was introduced to capers
in 1969 when, after a visit to Croatia, her family gave her a quantity
of capers to take home. As I plucked caper buds with Betty I began to
understand what a lavish gift that was. Capers are tiny.
Betty sells her capers at the Eastcliff /Liveoak farmers market but
she concedes it is a labor of love. A look at the hand full of capers
I had after ten minutes made me wonder how it could ever be an industry
here where labor costs are so high. Even if capers have little future
here as a crop they would make a dramatic landscape plant. For a look
at a caper blossom click on Life On The Farm at K.U.S.P. dot org. For
K.U.S.P. this is Andrew Griffin.
copyright 2004 Andrew Griffin
These are capers on the bush.
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