Twenty ears of wheat, preserved in a small vessel and kept for forty years by Antonino Cincotta: the return of grain to the fields of Lipari begins here, with a handful of matter left in waiting. In 2018, his grandson Antonello, a graduate in Economics and then a financial consultant in Milan, returned to the island to initiate the reclamation of his ancestral lands, later expanding his efforts to other plots of land obtained on loan.

The ears of wheat were entrusted to the Experimental Consortium Station for Grain Cultivation in Sicily, in Santo Pietro di Caltagirone. Analyses confirmed their germinative power and traced that wheat—named Barbettune by his grandfather for its dark, beard-like awns—back to the Margherito variety. From those initial seeds, the work of the Azienda Agricola Mandarano took shape: today, the cultivation spans some ten hectares and nourishes a small stone mill, producing flours, dried pasta, and a craft beer, Margherì.

Yet, it is wise to shield this chronicle from the allure of easy legend. Margherito had not vanished entirely, nor can it be defined as exclusively Aeolian: technical literature has classified it for decades as a twin variety of Bidì and Senatore Cappelli, all selected from the same North African population, the Mahmoudi (or Jenah Rhetifah)—so much so that the agronomist Ugo De Cillis, in his seminal 1942 study on Sicilian wheats, classified them as synonymous. The true value of Cincotta’s endeavor is, therefore, a concrete act: having restored this historic Sicilian variety to the fields of Lipari, and having reconstructed, after decades of abandonment, a local artisanal chain.

Within this chain, pasta is perhaps the most eloquent culmination. The treasured grain becomes semolina, then dough, and finally dried form; it departs the field without losing its geography. It is not merely a derivative product, but the sacred space where agriculture and gastronomy reunite. Thus, family memory acquires a daily texture, destined to be boiled, shared, and savored.

Alongside Antonello works his mother Pietrina, who also dedicates her time to the island’s schools, where she teaches the youth the sacred gestures of bread and pasta. This is a decisive step: biodiversity is not preserved solely in registries or seed banks. It lives when it returns to the hands, the language, and the daily nourishment of a community.

In Lipari, this time, the future did not arrive from the sea. It had remained for forty years inside a small vessel, awaiting someone who would return to sow it.