Festa I Primi d’Italia

Primo mi scuso per il ritardo nella pubblicazione, ma Google e Apple non vanno molto drawcord. (First my apologies for the delay in posting, but Google and Apple do not play well together.)

So after an uneventful flight and train ride (love the Italian railway system) I have arrived at the festival I Primi D’Italia in the first town where we spent the night last year on the trail in Foligno Umbria. Uniquely, Foligno is not a hilltop town as many are in Italy though it has a “Centro Storico” or historic center which is typical of most Italian towns of any size.

The reason for the return is shown above as I had a couple days to kill before my tour of Abruzzo began and wanted to do something other than hang around Rome. Awww poor baby I’m guessing some of you might be saying, but those who have followed my adventures over the years probably realize I’m not that is enamored with large cities and prefer the more intimate venue of smaller towns. For this Foligno fills the bill.

After drifting around a bit trying to get E to my bearings I found this pop up market in a palazzo on the edge of the Festa. So, fair warning folks, if you are expecting a reprise of Stanley Tucci’s excellent series “In search of Italy” you are going to be disappointed because my production crew was just me, myself, and I lol. Regardless I found the pop up market fascinating in its own way. First I found the largest Salami I believe I have ever seen.

Accompanied by another vendor across the aisle with some of the largest bread I have ever seen, and remember, many years ago, I was in the bread business.

Which could also go well with the porchetta. nearby.

Porchetta is an intrinsically Italian dish where a whole hog is deboned and stuffed with a pork liver pate or simply herbs such as rosemary parsley and garlic and the roasted, skin and all to achieve the beautiful piece of meat shown above. Think Thanksgiving meets whole hog barbecue lol. The meat is typically sliced and served on the Italian equivalent of a hoagie roll. Looks delicious but too much for me that evening.

For the sweet tooth there was a wide variety of pastries.

Western European countries are renowned for their baked goods. France for its bread, Germany for its strudel, etc. Italy has amazing bread and pasteries such as canolli, zeppoli and coronetti, or, as we know them, croissants. Croissants inItaly come plain or filled typically with cream, chocolate or jam (marmelatta).

Moving on from the pop up market I moved onto to the center of the Festa where the was food and entertainment. Primi is first course in the Italian meal process believing that a meal should be served in courses (primi, secondo, contorno, with possibly a Cheese course before or instead of dessert) in order for the person dining to experience the nuances of each course. Primi typically focuses on soups or pastas. So, this evening as a Festa special, three dishes were served a potato and mushroom soup, a pasta dish with a mild sausage with a very delicate olive oil based sauce and meat filled tortellini with a more traditional red sauce. Dessert was what is known as a tartufo, or truffle. However in the dessert realm a tartufo is ice cream, in this case vanilla, which surrounds a core of a different flavored ice cream, in this case espresso….tasty.

I then finished the meal with a “digestive” in this instance my favorite grappa Dice Otto Luna.

Now most grappa functions best as a degreasing agent for autoparts lol but not DOL. Aged for eighteen months, six months each in cherry, ash, and oak barrels, DOL when chilled is a cornucopia of nuanced flavors and is not available for purchase in the US so I indulged.

Up the block was the main stage where a children’s choir sang beautifully and the winners of the tango in love competition which was held earlier in the year in Perugia, the largest city in Umbria unfortunately I took a couple of shots but they didn’t come out, sorry.

A comedy group closed out the evening but my Italian is not versatile enough yet to appreciate the routine. So I toddled back to the hotel and called it a night. More to come, Ciao!