Sagra [SAH-grah]: A festival that celebrates one type of food, drink, or product from a town or region. These festivals can be found in small towns across Italy, and can be dedicated to anything from chestnuts to wine to boar.
I recently had the pleasure of attending my first sagra in the town of Bagnoli Irpino, a small commune in the region of Campania, Italy. This feast was dedicated to castagna (chestnut ) and tartufo (truffle.) Oh, was I excited to go to a festival dedicated to the yummiest mushroom on Earth! We drove for two hours from Napoli, cruised down the autostrade to the countryside, where we passed by cows, horses, and finally reached the small hilltop town. We happily got out of the car and traipsed toward the sound of music, voices, and the aroma of scamorza (smoked cheese.)
Not ever having been to a sagra before, I had imagined it would be similar to the farmers markets back home in California. I expected we would find a couple rows of vendors selling local products, have a bite to eat, and then head home. Boy, was I wrong.
The next 8 hours flew by in a slurry of loud tarantella music, smoke, cheese, truffle, porcini, pasta, and chestnuts. And wine. So. Much. Wine. Everywhere I looked, they were selling not glasses, but LITERS of wine for 8 euro each in large reused plastic bottles. I felt like a pirate, stumbling around old cobblestone streets while lugging a liter of wine with me.
We walked around a corner and suddenly saw other large posters advertising even more food vendors. I picked up a map and realized that we hadn’t even scratched the surface of this culinary adventure! It wasn’t just a piazza with a couple of vendors participating in the sagra, it was the whole town! There must have been at least a hundred vendors there, and every child, teen, and parent, was out and about enjoying the autumnal festivities. I particularly enjoyed seeing the old nonnas standing out on their balconies, observing all the action while yelling across the street to their neighbors.
Several hours and many plates of truffle smothered cheese later, the sky darkened and the music suddenly switched from the tarantella to the electronic beats of a club in Ibiza. Disoriented, with liter of wine in hand, we followed the sounds of the base and were greeted with a medieval-harvest-festival-meets-Gen Z-rave scene. There were young woman dancing atop their boyfriends shoulders, guys in flashing light up garments, and even a shirtless dude, all dancing super hard to the beats coming from a DJ that was set up under a giant poster with the words “Castagna Flambe,”aka sweet alcoholic roasted chestnuts. As if that scene wasn’t random enough, there was also a giant boar hung on some type of rotisserie that remained in the middle of the impromptu dance floor.
After a while, we got tired of DJ Chestnut and found another piazza-turned-dance floor, where we ended the night grooving to a live music trio under twinkling lights. In the end, I was very pleased, amused, and surprised, by my first sagra experience. If you get the chance to attend a sagra, I highly recommend it! You can enjoy them throughout Italy during summer and autumn. Here is a link that includes a list of sagras and their dates all over Italy. I’ve already pulled up my favorite region, Campania. https://www.giraitalia.it/sagre/campania/
Thanks for joining my Italian adventures, a presto!
Un bacio,
Amby
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