Sagra Time All Over Umbria

During late May and June, enjoy the best in simple local cooking (at enticingly low prices!) and ballroom dancing with “the locals” at a sagra. Which one and where? That depends on your “culinary craving” of the moment: If pasta with sauce of fish or fish grilled on an open fire tempt, you can head to Maceratola near Foligno for the Magnata de Pesce sagra. La Sagra dell’Ortolano (“ortolano” = vegetable gardener) at Balazano, near Perugia, is a hit for those loving dishes starring vegetables (and you can’t imagine the creative ways they’re cooked!).

Alessia serves up pasta agli asparagi con pomodoro

Carnivores will won’t want to miss la Sagra della Bistecca Fiorentina at Trestina (near Citta’ di Castello), Piacere Barbecue (“Barbeque Pleasure”) in Perugia, and the sagra starring roasted pork shin at Petrignano (small village near Assisi). Cherries take the stage in many a dish at la Festa della Ciliegia at Capodacqua near Assisi. (Try the risotto alle ciliegie!). At Sismano, near Avigliano Umbro (Orvieto area), the local sagra celebrates a pasta dish created by the Sismano women, le strappatelle. Sambucetole (near Terni) dedicates ten days in late June to the Sagra degli Gnocchi.

A hungry group of friends

Ilaria serves up French fries – and stops for a photo with Pino

One of my favorite sagras? In early springtime, at Eggi, tiny medieval village near Spoleto where wild asparagus reigns.

Crostata di asparagi

Read about a late-April sagra  near Perugia
Click here to read about a fall sagra near Assisi
Read about another festival where la porchetta is a headliner
Click here to read about a January legume festival
Read about an April wild asparagus sagra
Read about a festival where wines star
Click here to read about a June cheeses festival
Click here to read about a pici pasta sagra
Read about an August chili peppers festival
Click here to read about an a local bean sagra in October
Click here for news on an October mushroom sagra
Click here for news on a November hazelnuts sagra
Click here for news on a November honey festival
Click here for news on an October saffron festival
Click here for news on a November chestnuts sagra
Click here for news on a November white truffles festival
Click here for news on a November chestnuts black truffles festival
Click here for the menu
Read about another winner of a sagra near Perugia
Click here to read about another June sagra – but near Assisi

Dancing at the sagra