Caper berries, tomato, olive oil, basil, oregano, salt and pepper make a healthy and tasty salad that goes well as a contorno, side dish, or as an aromatic appetizer to tease your taste buds.
My niece Marzia Greco-Fiorilla vacationing in Salina, one of the Aeolian islands not far from Sicily, was served in one of the restaurants facing the green-blue sea, a salad with caper berries and tomatoes: she liked it so much that pronto she wrote me and sent me suggestions, pictures and an easy recipe to make a sauce, that in Salina is served over pasta.
In Salina the “cucunci ” are served in appetizers, mixed in green salads and also used to garnish fish dishes.

Capers grow all over Sicily and in the many small islands and archipelagos surrounding Sicily. It is a bush that easily grows wild in coastal areas, in arid land, on the side of roads or in any cracks in rocks, walls or pavements.
The capers are the buds of this plant and they must be picked before they flower to produce the fruit called caper berry, which is the size of an olive. Caper berry is called cucuncio in Sicilian and capperone in Italian.
Capers and caper berries are available salted or preserved in vinegar or oil.
Capers have been utilized for millenniums in Sicilian cooking to aromatize food from fish to meats and for its medical properties. In fact, the extract of caper is beneficial as an antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-histaminic. Parts of the roots are selected to prepare a tea used as a diuretic and to help in the cure of arthritis, varicose veins, and gout.
Capers are sorted out by size, the smaller ones are called nonpareils, have a delicate flavor, are the size of a small pea and are the most costly; the larger ones have a stronger taste and are less expensive.
Cucunci, the caper berries are preferably eaten raw, because when they are cooked the delicate taste and aroma fade away.