Furniture Construction Trip >>> Day 4 (Sunday, 14 May 2006) continued: La Saga di Porchetta in Monterado, Le Marche

The “sagra” is a tradition in many Italian towns. It’s a festival, town picnic, and street fair all wrapped up in one. Sagras typically celebrate a local food of the area that’s considered special by the town’s inhabitants, as well as others from miles (and sometimes miles and miles and miles) around. People will drive a long way to go to a favorite sagra. There are sagras for wine, olive oil, beef steak, mushrooms, artichokes, cheese – you name it, there’s a sagra for it somewhere.

Monterado is a very quaint little hill town in Le Marche, about 10km, as the crow flies, east of Senigallia. It’s very tiny … just one small piazza and a few side streets. The sagra is all about the porchetta that’s prepared in Monterado. It’s made from roast suckling pig. As one on the Marche’s English-language web sites explains this sagra:

"Roast sucking pig is a local dish which was included in the list among local productions of the Marche. It is the protagonist of this festival which made Monterado famous.
Monterado is a small and nice town of the hinterland and it is situated in the Val Casano, near the province of Pesaro.

During the festival there are some exhibitors who show their products, salami and truffles but the main dish is with no doubts roast sucking pig. It is huge, weighs 9 quintals and it is prepared according to a special method which makes its taste and aroma one and only. The roast sucking pig of Monterado is dry, fragrant and has a very little greasy part; moreover, its particular taste is due to the way it is dressed and cooked … in the wood-burning oven like in the past."

During the festival there are musical shows all afternoon long and during the evening there is an exhibition of cars and agricultural implements.

from:
http://prodottitipicimarche.com/EN/sezioni/SchedaFiera.asp?IDPRODOTTO=122)

I got there about 5:30 in the afternoon, and had to park way down the hill from the town because there were just so many people and so many cars, but very little parking available.

I walked into town, past the street fair where vendors were selling everything from lawn mowers to barbeques. As I turned up the street and into the piazza, I saw just a sea of people. At one end of the piazza was a stage with a band playing some contemporary music. At the other end, two or three large tent-like structures with tables and benches. There was a drinks tent, and a food tent, along with a “cassa” or cashier. The menu was extensive and superb. Pastas, meats, cheeses … I’m disappointed I forgot to grab a copy of the menu off of one of the tables.

I quickly scanned the menu and made my selection. Like with many places in Italy, you had to go to the cassa first, pay for your food and drink, receive tickets, and then use the tickets at the food tent or drinks tent.

I had a bowl of passatelli con tortufo which was incredible (with cheese). I also had a porchetta panino. I washed this down with a glass of Lacrima di Morro d’Alba (white) … all for E11.50 … quite a deal. It was clear I was one of the few foreigners attending, so I got some special treatment from the very nice woman who was taking tickets and running for food. My Italian is pretty good, but I still have a bit of an American accent when speaking it … especially when pronouncing the double consonants. I don’t do it quite like an Italian, but my tutor here in Ohio, who is an Abruzzo native working on his PhD in Philosophy at Ohio State, is helping me with this. I still can’t pass the sniff test when in Italy, but I hope I’m getting better. Such is life.

I spent some time taking pictures of the town, the sagra, and the people, as well as listened to the music and tried to watch a dance exposition by a local (ballroom style) dance school. Ballroom dancing is HUGELY popular in Italy, so the crowd was such that I had a hard time getting close enough to see anything, let alone take any pictures.

For a list of the sagre (plural of sagra) in Le Marche, see:
http://prodottitipicimarche.com/EN/default.asp?IdSezione=10

I then took a leisurely ride home, and went back to work. By night’s end, I’d completed the crazy armoir (5 drawers, 6 shelves, 1 hanger bar, 3 doors, and handle hardware), had a glass (or three) of wine, grabbed some gelato (frutti di bosco/coco), and got to bed at a reasonable (before 2:00 AM) hour. Time was flying by.