Cannara’s Onion Festival: an Umbria Highlight

Sharing tasty food with family and friends is often a week-end outing in central Italy from early spring to late fall, the season of la sagra (village food festival).

Onions take center stage at la Festa della Cipolla in Cannara, small village not far from Assisi. As you head to the food tent area, you’ll see shop windows with onions enhancing shop window displays…

…and booths where braids and bunches of those Cannara onions – flanked by bouquets of red chili peppers – are sold:

In the center of the village, food tents fill up with families and friends gathered to dine on the onion goodness. We chose to eat at El Cipollaro, the welcoming sign bordered with onions entwined with sunflowers.

Volunteers of all ages served up dishes highlighting those Cannara onions.

La schiacciata con cipolla (a pizza-like flatbread topped with onions) was a favorite antipasto:

…..as was that tasty mixed antipasto dei Sapori di Cannara (“antipasto with those flavors of Cannara”):

La vellutata di cipolla con crostini (a “velvety” onion soup served over toasted bread slices) enticed many as a first course:

…but I couldn’t resist the girasoli con cacio e pepe con crema di asparagi e mandorle (“sunflower-shaped ravioli stuffed with sheep’s milk cheese and black pepper topped with asparagus and almond creamy sauce”). Mamma mia!