Ancient poor dishes festival

Original name: Sagra della Miseria

Place: Colle Val d'Elsa, in Siena province.

First year of the festival: 1988

Period of the festival: June

2023 scheduled on: Saturday and Sunday 3-4, 10-11, 17-18 and 24-25

Opening times: Saturday and Sunday, on June weekends, only dinner from 7.30 pm

Local specialties:

• Appetizers: fiori di zucca fritti, fried zucchini flowers; bruschette all'olio e al pomodoro, Tuscan bread with olive oil and garlic or tomato;
• First courses: zuppa di pane, bread soup; panzanella, cold salad with bread with tomato; pappa col pomodoro, bread and tomato soup;
• Second courses: trippa, tripes; porchetta, roast pork; baccalà, dried and salted cod; fagioli all'uccelletto e salsicce, beans in tomato sauce with sausages;
• Side dishes: fagioli bianchi, boiled cannellini beans; verdure fritte, fried vegetables;
• Desserts: crostata, cake with jam.

Virtually everything here comes straight from the past tradition, as clearly demonstrated by the name of this festival "sagra della miseria", which in English could be literally translated as "Poverty Festival"... actually, many treasures of Tuscan cuisine are made with few and cheap ingredients, first of all the Tuscan bread, necessary and irreplaceable in our region.

Some great dishes based on bread are the Zuppa di pane, a bread soup with vegetables; the pappa col pomodoro, a rather dry soup - pappa means mush - with bread and tomato. The panzanella, a sort of cold salad perfect for summer, with bread, tomato and onions; you'll find all these three delights here in Colle.

The other dishes too, are clearly example of how much the Tuscan was a "poor" cuisine, and its ingredients were inexpensive: tripe, which was, and still is a cheap meat cut; the baccalà, dried and salted cod, one of the few fish that peasants could afford to buy, because of its low price (today it's way more expensive, though); sausages and beans in tomato sauce, a traditional combo. In this menu of delicacies, we point out (at least) also the fried zucchini flowers, a dish which with some variants is present in many Italian regions and much appreciated everywhere.