Sagra: Joining a Local Festival!
April 27, 2003


We've been attending the local sagre (singular: sagra) or country festivals since our arrival here in Umbria nearly 30 years ago and we certainly do have favorites - and just discovered another one last night - Primavera Sant'Enea ("Spring in Sant'Enea") - at a tiny hilltop village outside of Perugia, Sant'Enea (pop. 997), which originated as a 13th c. monastery dedicated to Sant'Agnese (hence "Enea").

As is customary at every sagra, a culinary specialty is theme: pork, at the Sant'Enea sagra, with different sorts of dishes every night for the nine-day sagra, most of them on the pork theme. Last night: risotto or tagliatelle (homemade fettuccine) highlighted with fresh asparagus and the famed Umbrian sausages and second course of roasted pork shin or mixed grill of ribs, sausages, pork chops. On other nights this week, pappardelle (wide ribbon pasta) with wild boar, polenta with a meat sauce of pork cheek, ribs and porcini mushrooms followed by a second course which vary from roasted ribs with fennel-scented roast potatoes to mixed grill to barley soup with prosciutto bone. Tasty typical local antipastos and homemade desserts precede and follow the meals, all accompanied with excellent local wines.

At all the sagre, huge tents are set up in designated areas of the village, or just outside, and the local villagers, both men and women, volunteer as cooks while the young people serve at table. Stands of various types often flank the eating area. At Sant'Enea, bicycles could be rented at one (for exploration of the area), fresh strawberries with cream were sold at another, carnival-type games could be played at another, and of course, there was the ubiquitous sweet stand, present at every sagra or street fair in Italy since time immemorial, to tantalize the passers-by with many varieties of torrone (nougat), croccanti (honey-covered hazelnuts), dried fruits and nuts of every sort, licorice, and the semenze (seeds and legumes for nibbling: pumpkin, sunflower, roasted chickpeas, lupini).

Last night, my husband Pino and I arrived at Sant'Enea early - at seven-thirty - to beat the crowds, also because week-end nights are the most crowded. Every sagra rotates around an outdoor dance floor with bandstand (maybe just the village tennis court) and the music starts at nine. Dancing continues to the early hours of the morning - and you should see those farm people dance: waltz, fox trot, tango, polka, dance after dance, non-stop, with little children paired together right in the midst, learning to ballroom dance by shadowing their parents. There is a sagra somewhere in Umbria all spring, summer, and into early fall, and many rural people and working class people attend them just for the dancing - free entertainment nightly! They dance their way through the summer nights.

Often sagre will offer other types of locally-generated entertainment to precede the dance band: a performance by the local ballet school or the gymnastics class, a mini-soccer tournament, local theatre, even an open political debate. Sagre generally last from a week to ten days, and some as long as two weeks, and are participated in by most in the village through the duration of the festival (and often for months before!).

The term "sagra" derives from "sacra festa," and at one time, the village sagra was centered on the feast day of the local patron saint. About thirty years ago, most of the sagre evolved into secular events, and today the focal point of most sagre is a culinary specialty: Sagra degli Asparagi, Sagra dei Porcini, Sagra del Castagno (chestnut), Sagra della Ciliegia ( cherry), Sagra della Pesca (peach), Sagra dell'Oca Arrosto (roast goose), Sagra dell'Anguilla (eel), Sagra della Torta (Umbrian bread), Sagra della Porchetta (roasted suckling pig), Sagra del Cinghiale (wild boar), and what more perfect way to wind up the sagra season in late November than with the Sagra del Tartufo (truffle).

Some sagre still center on a Saint's Feast Day and open with a Mass and a religious procession on the first day, followed by the secular events (dinners and dancing) in the evenings. Such is the Sagra di Santa Anna in the Assisi countryside, not far from our home, which begins on or near the Feast of Saint Anne on July 26. Saint Anne is the patron saint of expectant mothers. When I was expecting each of my three children, my farm neighbors would always remind me to visit the little church of Sant'Anna on her feast day to pray for a healthy baby. I remember the admonition of dear old Alessandro, leaning on his cane in front of the oxen stall, who had waved me down as I passed on my motorbike, reminding me to visit Sant'Anna. A week later he presented me with a holy card from Sant'Anna. He was worried that I had not gone to Sant‚Anna to pray for the birth of our third child (due that winter), and so he went on foot, leaning on his cane, to do it for me! Giulia was a very healthy baby... grazie, Alessandro!

A visit to a sagra is your opportunity to join in the local life and festivities of an Umbrian village. You will enjoy some of the best food in Umbria, and at the best prices. You may also be the only foreigners present! I took a group of Americans to a sagra last summer, and they acclaimed it the highlight of their month in Italy. Many of the villagers stopped at our table to ask how they had ever ended up there!

Result: this year I am offering new SAGRAtours (found under FESTAtours on my website) which conclude with participation in a sagra. These new SAGRAtours will include an afternoon in one of the medieval hill town gems of Umbria: Spello, Bevagna, Spoleto, Gubbio, followed by dinner at the best local sagra in the area. And in late August, I will conduct an Assisi SAGRAtour, which will include a visit to Assisi in the afternoon and participation in a sagra near to our home, on the flank of Mount Subasio, the backdrop of Assisi - one of the best of the summer sagre: with wonderful food, and all our farm neighbors in attendance!

© Annesitaly - Anne Robichaud