Since 2000, Castiglione del Lago has homed a Slow Food presidium in order to promote and conserve the Fagiolina del Trasimeno. The non-profit organization aims to guarantee a viable future for traditional foods by stabilizing production techniques, establishing stringent production standards, and promoting local consumption.
The cutting-edge techniques used to protect bio diversities have allowed the Slow Food researchers to identify the genetic characteristics of Fagiolina del Trasimeno. The “fagiolina” seems to have been known and cultivated since the Etruscan Age. It later became scarcer and scarcer as quite unfit to accommodate the modern industrial production requirements.
The fagiolina is not a bean, but a legume (scientifically called Vigna unguiculata), shaped like a bean with a typical “black eye” where it attaches to the pod. Nowadays only a few producers cultivate it requesting the seeds, almost totally disappeared, to the Bank of Seeds in the Faculty of Agriculture of the University of Perugia.
The origins of Fagiolina del Trasimeno must be found in Africa: it arrived in Umbria thanks to the ancient Mediterranean populations that travelled around. Theophrastus, successor of Aristotle in the Peripatetic school, wrote about this species in Greece in 300 BC, so that the Greeks themselves spread those seeds around the southern Europe.
The maturation is scalar: the fagiolina should be collected every day for a couple of weeks. The plants get set into the farmyard to dry and the farmers beat them with forks and sticks. Once dried they separate the seeds using proper screens.
Small and oval, the fagiolina could be differently coloured: white (most common), salmon, black and brown. To taste is tender, buttery and incredibly savoury. The local recipes fagiolina-based are very simple, you can eat both beans and pod (cornetto) seasoned with extra-virgin olive oil and a bit of garlic.
The villages scattered all around the Cilento coast maintain a very ancient fishing technique, but non so closely tied to it than the pretty town of Pisciotta.
If you have searched the web looking for activities to do while vacationing on the Amalfi Coast, there is no doubt that you have already read about Mamma Agata and her incredible cooking school in Ravello.
Once you have peeled your eyes away from the stupendous scenery of the Amalfi Coast, one of the first things you’re bound to notice is the large lemons hanging from the trees.
The hills that surround the city of Salerno and stretch from the Amalfi Coast to the Cilento National Park give an extra-virgin olive oil with an intense colour and a unique fruity taste.
Agerola is known as "Città del Pane" - city of bread – nationwide popular brand that recognizes some Italian towns where this product assumes a special value due to the peculiar characteristics.
At Summer in Italy we do care about our guests, and this is why, in order to help you making your food shopping in Italy just perfect, we would like to share a few tips about high-quality local products.
Its unique and special characteristics, very much appreciated even abroad, gives the name to "Fico Bianco del Cilento": once dried, the sweet peel gets light yellow coloured rather than chestnut brown if oven-cooked.
Amalfi Coast
Sorrento Coast
Tuscany
Cilento National Park
Lake Como
Rome and Latium
Umbria
Capri and Ischia
Venice
Puglia (Apulia)
Liguria
Sicily
Lake Maggiore
Lombardy
Sardinia
Lake Garda
Abruzzo and Marche
Calabria
