June here in Le Marche sees the start of the summer sagra/food festival season, where all the village and towns around here celebrate all that is great about their local food and produce.
Each sagra is slightly different, and can go on for one, two, or even three nights. They typically focus on one key dish, but then offer a whole range of local food on top of that. Typical sagras are pizza and beer, parpadelle pasta with hare, fresh water crayfish, gnocchi, vincisgrassi and tortellini.
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| The serious business of cooking |
Village centres are decorated, stages are set up for live music and dancing, and the all-important benches and tables are set out, where everyone sits and eats together. There’s a menu displayed and then some queuing (a favourite pastime of us Brits) to order your food and drink, when you pay and get your receipts (a favourite pastime of Italians). You then queue up again at another hut or stand, hand your receipt over and get given various plates of seriously delicious food.
Then it’s time to find a free spot on a table to share with the village locals, and eat. Considering the sheer scale that even the smallest of sagras has to cater for – all with local volunteers, including young children who seem to relish the responsibility – the food is without fail, top notch.
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| Tortellini, Olive Ascolane, lamb spiedini |
Our little village of Sant’Angelo in Pontano here in Le Marche had a tortellini sagra, and it was an absolute blast. Everyone was out; children of all ages, old folk, plumbers, doctors, cooks, teachers, ex-pats, holiday makers. There was a live band that produced what can only be described as a flock of middle-aged locals deftly doing the foxtrot and quick step, and then seamlessly (apparently without any discussion among the 40-50 people dancing) moving into a line dance when the music tempo changed.
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| The foxtrot |
If you’re thinking about heading to here on holiday, look out for the posters on the side of the roads that tell you which sagra is where and when. We’ll also do our best to keep an up-to-date list available for our guests.
Wherever you are in Italy, they’ll definitely be a sagra near you, and there’s no better way to get a real insight into village life and the love of local food.
A word of warning: make sure you go to a sagra with a serious appetite. You won’t be disappointed.