Rendezvous with the traditional festival at the end of July in Frigento
The cuisine of Frigento is traditionally a folk cuisine whose recipes are characterized by the easiness of execution and the ingredients, almost exclusively coming from the fields. The lands are mainly occupied by olive groves and vineyards but also by cultivations of wheat, grass peas and vegetables. The rediscovery of ancient recipes has brought again on our tables simple and poor dishes, with very intense tastes, capable to give refreshment and relief.
From the cultivation of the grass pea, it is born the festival dedicated to this legume. The grass pea (lathyrus satinus) is similar to the chickpea plant and is cultivated in few Apennine areas of central and southern Italy and grows in poor lands, like that of Frigento.
Therefore, from 1997, in Frigento, on the last Saturday and Sunday of July, there is, in the zone of Pagliara, the traditional ‘Festival of the Grass Pea’. This date aims at promoting, above all among the new generations, a very noble and ancient bond that has been almost entirely forgotten. In the occasion of the new harvest of the grass peas, they offer to the gourmands the quality and the unique taste of this exceptional legume with great nutritional properties, cultivated with biological methods.
The Festival presents a menu based on the grass pea, with a wise use of ancient ingredients, in the respect of the best culinary tradition of Irpinia: lagane and grass peas, salt cod and grass peas, Frigento grass peas soup, grass peas salad, desserts with grass peas and much more, all eaten with wine of the hills of Irpinia.
The main interest is to keep the biological aspect, the typicality of the product coming from the lands of Frigento, with more and more quality.
The cuisine, characterized by the presence of the typical products coming from the local cultivations and livestock, guarantees the excellent taste of the meats, the excellent quality of vegetables, the genuineness and the flavor of each product, helping the transformation of the ‘subsistence’ cuisine into much sought-after gastronomy.
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