Sagre: The Village Table

The word sagra comes from sacro, sacred. The festivals began as feast days of the village saint, or as thanks for a harvest, and the food followed. Today most are organised by the village club or the parish. The kitchens are staffed by volunteers, the tables are long and shared, the menu is short and the prices are modest, and it is usually a single food that gives the weekend its name: a chestnut, a boar, a bean, a truffle. Many do not take reservations, and the best are small enough that the cooks know most of the guests.

November is the season of the white truffle and of olio nuovo, the new oil, green and peppery, pressed in the weeks before. These are the three we would choose.

San Miniato White Truffle Fair

14–15, 21–22 and 28–29 November · San Miniato · under an hour

Now in its 55th edition, the fair takes over the historic centre of San Miniato for three weekends, with stalls of truffles and regional produce, truffle menus in the local restaurants, and a truffle hunt. It is a fair rather than a village supper, but it is the closest to a sagra at this scale. In 1954 a truffle hunter named Arturo Gallerini and his dog, Parigi, found a white truffle of just over two and a half kilos here, the largest on record; a wrought-iron monument in the town commemorates them. We would suggest a weekend morning, before the squares fill.

Visit San Miniato

Festa dell’Olio, Montemurlo

8–15 November, main day Sunday the 15th · Rocca di Montemurlo · about half an hour

The festival runs over a week at the old fortress above Prato, from 8 to 15 November. Through the week there are selected events around the new oil — tastings, talks and sales — rather than a market. The 15th is the day itself: food stalls, performances and the main fair, a sagra in the proper sense, small, local and organised by the town. Olio nuovo is best on bread, and best tasted where it is made.

Visit Festa dell’Olio

Sagra della Fettunta, Mezzomonte

21–22 and 28–29 November · Impruneta · about 20 minutes

Held every November for more than fifty years, in step with the new oil, this is the village sagra at Mezzomonte, a hamlet of Impruneta twenty minutes from Le Cure. Fettunta — bread toasted, rubbed with garlic and dressed with new oil — gives it its name, but the dish to order is the peposo all’imprunetina, the peppery beef stew said to have been cooked in the kilns of Impruneta while Brunelleschi was raising his dome. Ribollita and rosticciana follow. Run by the village social club, it does not take reservations, so we would arrive early.

Visit Sagra della Fettunta

Our Curator can book lunch near any of the three and arrange the day around it. We can also arrange truffle hunts with dogs in the Florentine countryside, for guests who would rather see the truffle found than bought.