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Columns Food and Wine Recipes

Ingredients:

  • 400 g of roveja flour
  • 2 l of salted water
  • 5 anchovy fillets in oil, plus others to decorate
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • extravirgin olive oil to taste

Directions:

Put the pan with the salted water on the fire. As soon as the water boils, pour the roveja flour and mix vigorously with a whisk to prevent lumps from forming. At a low heat, keep turning the polenta with a wooden spoon for about 40 minutes. While the Farecchiata is cooking, heat the extra virgin olive oil with the whole garlic in a non-stick pan; when they are golden brown, remove them and insert the anchovy fillets, letting them melt slowly over low heat. Once the polenta is cooked, remove it from the heat, pour it into the dishes and season with the flavored oil you have prepared; let it rest for a minute, then serve with a rolled anchovy in the center of the plate. Your Farecchiata di Roveja is finally ready to be enjoyed.
A tantalizing variant: to make your Farecchiata more crunchy, cut it into slices, fry it and serve it with an anchovy fillet.

 

Farecchiata, (or polenta with Roveja flour), is a typical polenta with a delicate and slightly bitter taste that is prepared in different areas of the Marche region, but especially in the Castelluccio di Norcia one, in Umbria. It is a dish that belongs to pastoral tradition: an important source of sustenance for the families of shepherds and farmers of the Sibillini Mountains. A very poor dish that in the past was served as a breakfast to the local shepherds. The main ingredient is Roveja, a small and tasty brownish legume, similar to chickpeas but with a stronger flavor. Also known as field pea, robiglio or corbello, roveja is an ancient legume, which risks disappearing due to the difficulties related to the impervious conditions of the territory and the morphology of the plant. Nowadays, in fact, it only survives in a limited area of ​​Valnerina thanks to the efforts of some farmers who work in the locality of Preci (Cascia), where there is also an ancient water source called dei rovegliari. Extremely nutritious, with a high intake of proteins, phosphorus, carbohydrates and a reduced fat content, roveja is now a Slow Food Presidium.

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Agriculture Nature Tours

Henry James, visiting Umbria, wrote: «His first [visitor] care will be not to be in a hurry to walk everywhere very slowly and aimlessly preserving all that his eyes will encounter».

A handful of words that inspires this itinerary among the flavors and aromas of Valnerina, significative elements of an Umbrian identity, which wants to tell its story. Authentic tastes which come back to life thorough valleys and ancient towns where the laboriousness of man is kept.  Here it is possible to know the whises of the Umbrian people to reflect, at the table, the richeness of their land: this is the reason why  we decided to discover the flavors of Valnerina.

The trout of the Nera river

The Nera river is like a primitive flow, which for millennia has tormented the sleep of the ancient bridges and stone of Valnerina. It has shaped this superb landscape, combining its name with the territory and becoming an incomparable icon of Umbria. Valnerina is a place where biodiversity resists to the agri-food chains that aim to bury stories of the fishermen, worn by the Nera and its breeze. And it is precisely in this context that the river drags downstream the trout of the Valnerina, considered as a trophy by the fishermen coming from everywhere.

 

Honey

Honey

In Valnerina, the journey through the lands of taste can continue, crossing one of the many passes and borders and finding different souls and unexpected aromas. Visitng small companies that produce ancient flavors, such as honey, allows the visitor to meet people, faces and stories. Buying directly from the producers, at zero km, not only guarantees the quality, but also allows to follow an itinerary along the paths of an uncontaminated landscape. This part of Umbria has a strong voction for this noble nectar both precious and appreciated, which has flourished, with renewed and lively enthusiasm, derived from the source of an ancient tradition.

 

legumi tipici umbri

IGP lentils of Castelluccio

If there was a night of the gastronomy Oscars, on the red carpet of taste and tradition, the Umbrian excellences would win more than one award.  But if there is an award that certainly can not miss is that for the lentils of Castelluccio di Norcia: a product in which archaic tastes are exhibited, with an extraordinarily modern charm.
Castelluccio di Norcia, a poor land with healthy products, would be the closing title of this short film about the Umbria of genuineness. In the “tradition casting”, the main role belongs to the famous lentil, legume, that in the cold of the Apennine Mountains ‘ winter, manages to preserve an incomparable quality. A food proudly made in Valnerina that, in the shyness of an extraordinarily small seed, hides an infinitely large flavor.

 

Keep it going…

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Culture Environment Nature Spare Time

“I assure you that it doesn’t need to be windy, because you would be in great danger. Even without wind, it is very horrible to see the valley from all sides and in particular to the right hand; because it is so horrible for the precipice and height that it is hard to believe (…) because if by misfortune your foot is missing, there is no other strength except that of God that could save it. ” (Antoine de la Sale, Queen Sybil’s Paradise)

The wind is undoubtedly one of the predominant features of the Sibillini Mountains, with that insistent and overpowering breath that seems to carry in the air an arcane voice, with its sometimes sinister flavor, up there, in that massive that rises impressive between Umbria and the Marche, in a zone heavily affected by the recent earthquake, but that guards, unchanged, beauty and wonder.

 

Sibilla Appenninica by Adolfo de Carolis

The unintelligible oracle

Right up there, between the Mount of the Sibyl, the gorges of the Infernaccio and Lake Pilato, are lurking ancient stories and legends, which are handed down, intertwined and transformed from generation to generation and still retain a magical and enchanting charm. In ancient times, Mount Sibilla attracted European people because it was thought that near its top there was a cave, oracle Sybil’s home.
We know that the cult of Sybil was very old, dating back to the classical era, during which the Sibyls were prophets who made ambiguous predictions, found in the leaves scattered by the wind.
Among the ten classic Sybils, however, does not appear the one of the Apennines, the one that gave the name to our mountains. Did the myth originate, as some scholars claim, from the Phoenician deity Cibele, the Great Mother, the goddess of nature and of the fertility that owned the gift of prophecy?
Or is it more recent, dating back to the Middle Ages, when pagan gods become Christian prophets? Was she “our” Sybil that, according to the legend, foretold the birth of Christ, and then, offended because God chose Mary as Mother of the Redeemer, rebelled against him and was confined for punishment in that lost cave?

The Queen's Double Face

The first person who talked about the Apennine Sibyl, in 1430, was Andrea da Barberino, with his novel Guerrin Meschino, a knight who asked Sybil’s advise trying to reveal the identity of his never-known parents. From this moment on, Sybil began to assume the semblance of a cruel and enchanting queen, a seducer capable of bringing a man to ruin, turning away from God and his precepts. And if Guerrin Meschino succeeded in contrasting her flatteries and, after a year, to escape the insidious kingdom and to obtain Pope’s forgiveness; the same thing did not happen to the German knight narrated a few years later by Antoine de La Sale in his opera Queen Sybil’s Paradise. The knight came to the Sibyl’s cave searching for adventures, but he was caught by her fascination so that only with great effort he managed to escape. He also went to the Pope asking for forgiveness, but the Pontiff hesitate in giving him his indulgence. So, upset, he returned to the realm of the Sibyl and didn’t come back ever again.
The popular legend, anyway, painted Sybil as a fairy surrounded by its maids, the Sibilline Fairies, who leave the cave mainly at night to go to Foce, Montemonaco, Montegallo, between Pian Grande, Pian Piccolo and Pian Perduto di Castelluccio di Norcia and Pretare, but they had to return before sunrise. It is told that during a dance they have lost their sense of time and, too late on the way back, they ran desperately with their goats’ feet, they formed the Road of Fairies, a fault at 2000 meters above Mount Vettore.

 

Drawing by Antoine de La Sale

A place devoted to the Devil

These are myths and legends, probably born for the necessity of understanding and, in some ways, justifying the impervious and imposing conformation of a territory that over the centuries has fascinated and at the same time frightened the inhabitants and the strangers who have faced their complexity.
So the Pilate’s lake, beautiful and impetuous, as the road to reach it, became the terrible place where Pontius Pilate was led, and, tied to a carriage of oxen by the will of the Emperor Vespasian, was dragged by the crazy animals at the very bottom of the little lake with “eyewear” where he drowned. Many writers and poets talk about Pilate’s lake as a place devoted to the devil, a destination elected by wizards and necromancers.
Fortunately, the pretty alpine pond, the only one in the Apennines, is still there, and contrary to what appeared to be after the 2016 earthquake, though with some backlash, the world’s most spectacular glasses keep watching us from the top of Mount Vettore.
Who loves hiking and nature’s majesty and, why not, with a little magical and fairy-tale flavor, does not miss the opportunity to go into these unique places, perhaps starting from Castelluccio di Norcia, who, in terms of legend, seems to be the favorite destination of the Sibyl’s Fairies during their night-time moves.

 

Andrea da Barberino, Guerrin Meschino

Antoine de la Sale, Il Paradiso della Regina Sibilla)

http://www.sibilliniweb.it/citta/la-sibilla-appenninica/

http://www.lifemarche.net/grotta-sibilla-linterpretazione-leggenda.html

http://ilcastellodelsole.blogspot.it/p/la-sibilla-appenninica.html

http://www.coninfacciaunpodisole.it/index.php/sibillinisegreti-il-blog-tour/189-sulle-tracce-della-sibilla-appenninica

Monti Sibillini, le più belle escursioni – Alberico Alesi e Maurizio Calibani (Società Editrice Ricerche)

 

 

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