The Italians love food so much that special culinary festivals are held in towns and villages all over the country. Here are just a few.
It’s hard to imagine a festival in Italy without food. Religious events, from Christmas to days devoted to patron saints, are generally celebrated with special meals that may vary depending on the region. In Liguria at Easter, for instance, it’s traditional to make a Torta Pasqualina (Easter Pie); Romans will eat pork for the Feast of St John the Baptist in June, and in Sardinia on Shrove Tuesday stalls in the village of Nuoro will spring up in the streets serving a hearty stew of pork lard and beans. Then there’s the Carnival of Ivrea, in Piedmont, when oranges are used as squashy missiles in festive street fights.
Sagre - Festivals of Food
Throughout Italy you’ll also find sagre - festivals devoted to particular local foods rather than religious events. These are generally annual events and will involve the whole community. If you come across one, make the most of it, as there will usually be stalls giving you the chance to taste the produce, which will generally be at its seasonal peak. The variety of foods celebrated is immense – everything from walnuts to wild boar, as well as more unlikely Italian produce such as sea urchins and snails. There are also festivals for different types of pasta, bread, polenta (there’s a polenta festival in August in Prato Carnico, in the northern region of Friuli-Venezia, for example) and risotto. As you might expect, given that it’s a regional speciality, the risotto festival takes place in Lombardy. It’s held in Villimpenta in June.
Lemon Festival
There are a large number of festivals for fresh fruit and vegetables, such as strawberries, peaches, artichokes, cherries, lemons - and even pomegranates (Palmariggi in Apulia has a pomegranate festival in September). Perhaps the best known fruit festival is the Sagra dei Limoni (Lemon Festival) which is held in the picturesque village of Monterosso al Mare, one of the Cinque Terre in Liguria. Lemon groves are a distinctive feature of the local landscape and the festival takes place in May, on the third Saturday before Ascension Day.
Gourmet Truffles
Gourmets will want to check out festivals to celebrate the delicious woodland truffles for which Italy is so famous. The best known is the Black Truffle Festival held in Norcia, Umbria - but black truffle fairs also take place in villages in the Marche and Lazio. The white truffle, Tartufo Bianco, takes centre stage at a festival in Tuscany in late Oct/early Nov. It’s held in Volterra – which is famous for its Etruscan origins. The streets fill with stalls selling the highly prized white truffles.
Chocolate and Chestnut Festivals
There’s more delicious food to taste at the famous chocolate festival held each year in Turin, Italy’s unofficial chocolate capital, and at the lesser known Chestnut Festival of Castiglione d’Orcia. Held on the last Sunday in October, in Tuscany, this is a chance to taste local dishes made from chestnuts that grow in the woods. The hamlets of Vivo and Campiglia are particularly lively.
Fresh Seafood
If you prefer seafood, then you’ve got a wide choice of fish festivals to visit. Baccala, a traditional salt cod, is celebrated in August in Avigliano in Basilicata; there’s a swordfish festival in Calabria each July and an extremely lively Sagra del Pesce in the fishing village of Camogli in Liguria.
Read more about the Festive Food of Italy
