Guardian Article

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09/06/2009 - 05:02
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Interesting comment Cassini.  I don't know this part of Liguria so well, but it sounded tempting.  The fact that each village has it's own dialect and food speciality is of course the case just about everywhere.  What's the speciality in your village?  Ours has the annual Sagra della Scherpada, Ponzano's take on the ubiquitous Torta di Verdura.

 It certainly captures the feel of the area.  The medieval hill towns on their hilltops - a lovely sight.  This is my area of Liguria so I know it fairly well.  Most places have torte verde or its friend on offer.  Perinaldo has a variety of sagre but its special one is provencal artichokes DOC no less. On the other hand along with Cervo it has an annual Cuban evening..... The white (dried) beans of Pigna are very sought after for Capra and fagioli ... They're actually quite nice boiled up with onion and seasoned with olive oil and herbs.Some of the hilltowns in this area are still largely unoccupied - Buggio a fraz of Pigna is a good example at the head of the valley with deserted and semi ruined houses.

Artichokes, hmmm!  When is that sagra?  Funny enough in the La Spezia dialect they are called artciocche.  What's on offer on the Cuban evening, cigars?  I went to a tasting in London years ago, matching the wines of the Rhone with Cuban cigars.  Imagine a room with some 100 people smoking their way through 5 cigars each, we could hardly see the lovely, scantily clad young Cuban girls serving the wine!Capra and fagioli sounds good too.  I'm getting hungry and it's only breakfast time!

 Here is the link to the artichoke info.  I think it is usually in May. Its always a bit of a slow food event.http://lnx.perinaldo.org/node/14Often there are demos of recipes, artichoke preparation and of course food, mostly all including, yes artichokes.The Cuban evening is usually a cuban band, some dancing, cocktails and a cuban platter of food, lots of rice, beans, some meat - this year it was a little chilli beef and lots of roast pork in huge hunks...  The next event is the chesnut roasting in October , huge pans proudly shaken over open fires.Hope the arm is healing.

 Was this guy just too lazy to drive the extra 5 km’s up the mountain to Triora?  How can you write about the hilltowns, make it to Molini di Triora and not go up to Triora??!!But all in all, good PR))