2005 Peperoncino Festival in Calabria, Part 1 of 2

Finally, the Wednesday night ribbon cutting ceremony – the 2005 Peperoncino Festival was officially opened. Each night, thousands of chile-loving visitors flowed along the Lungomare, and also through the streets of Diamante. Meanwhile, the seaside promenade is running out of vendor and exhibitor space, so more hot & spicy booths could be found throughout Diamante, turning the whole town into one giant party.

The festival honored this by cooking and offering international chile & bean dishes from Tuscany, the Basilicata, Mexico, Peru and other places – every day different specialties. By all means – quite some beans!

“Pasta e Fagioli”: A popular Italian way of using beans is their combination with pasta, and the local Ristorante Bersagio served a delish one-pot dish with pasta, chile and beans in tomato sauce at their booth.

One of the initiators of the “Chiles & Beans” theme is Massimo Biagi (below to the right, next to Harald), a University of Pisa professor and master chile breeder. Once more he managed to have pods of more than 150 different chile varieties from around the globe perfectly mature and colorful all at the same time and right in time for the festival, offering them for sale to the public.  This year, he also had 80 different international bean varieties on display!

Of course I asked Massimo how in the world he came up with the idea of showcasing beans. “In June”, he said, “the University had to provide a public presentation in Pisa. At this time of the year, not even in our mild climate we have mature peppers. On the other hand, dried beans are available at any time of the year, and since beans are ancient food just like peppers, even traditionally used together, we started to collect and demonstrate their enormous variety of pepper’s old pals.”

In the 16th century, long before becoming a widespread ingredient, beans were considered royal food, and noblemen exchanged them as gifts at special occasions. Massimo showed off beans from around the world, but Italy itself has plenty of different varieties to offer, including some with trademarked area protection by the European Union (not only selected wines are getting IGP (Indicazione geografica protetta)  – some other food items like peppers, cheese or beans as well. One example are Fagioli di Sarconi (beans of Sarconi) — they’re grown in the sandy soil of the upper Val D’Agri in the Basilicata, whose climate is mild and cool. The beans of Sarconi are the main ingredient of soups or homemade pasta as well as various bean dishes. These beans that are particularly tasty and fast to cook were for sale in 1-pound bags at the festival by Sarconi producers.

Interestingly, the same area in the Basilicata is also home to a special kind of mild peppers that enjoy IGP status as well. These peppers, named Peperoni di Senise, will be the subject of a separate Tasty Travel article soon.

Matching the theme, fiery-foods manufacturer  Magnifici del Mezzogiorno introduced a new product, named “Confettura Piccante di Fagioli“, a sweet and spicy bean spread. Framed by Harald and Renate on the picture above, that’s Giuseppe, sales manager at Magnifici del Mezzogiorno.

Every year, the festival hosts podium scientific discussions and presentations on the theme’s subject. This time, Professor Bruno Amantea of the Università Magna Grecia di Catanzaro and collegues discussed history, tradition and health benefits of beans. Afterwards there was a sampling of bean specialties.

Another podium of experts discussed whether Calabria should also seek area protction for their peppers. Probably not a bad idea, considering the popularity of this Italian region’s hot pods.

Taking a break at Cafe Nini, connecting with old and new pepper pals. From the right, that’s Mats from Sweden, Ricardo from Rome, and Marco from Recco in Liguria (Northern Italy). And of course ye olde German pepperheads. Before driving down to Calabria, we stopped by Marco’s place. He and his wife Valeria cooked a wonderful dinner for us, and Marco showed us his remarkable pepper garden. It’s so much fun how chile peppers connect people from different countries that otherwise would probably never meet.

Hard to believe, but every year, we still discover new products that are related to the hot pods — food and non-food.

What do you give to the chilehead who got everything? How about some fancy lighting. This chile chandelier was for sale at the festival, tasteful  illumination for every self-respecting chile lover’s home.

To show off the luxurious lamp, the vendor set up a makeshift living room in his booth. Renate made herself comfortable.

“No way we gonna buy that lamp,” she insisted, though. Ooops. Too bad. I had envisioned it illuminating our library, which also holds my private little “chile pepper museum.”

I comforted myself by purchasing a box of chile-shaped incense (“absolute novelty”) for my collection. Don’t smell any different from other incense, but they look really hot.

A new chile item was also availably by the Italian chile professor (see above). Right in time for the festval, he got his little book from the printer, titled  “Coltivare Peperoncino” (cultivating chile).

On about 60 pages with many illustrations, Massimo gives helpful instructions how to grow your own. Peppers, that is.

The book’s ISBN is 88-88948-21-X, and with 6 Euro (about $7.00), it shouldn’t be hard on hobby farmers’ budgets. Equipped with an Italian dictionary, it is helpful literature to learn or brush up Italian language.

And with getting about 150 different chile varieties to produce ripe pods for the festival every year, Massimo proves that he’s an expert on the subject.

The Pecorinos to the right got a nice peperoncino rub.

Cheeses! Chiles everywhere! Calabria wouldn’t be Europe’s headquarter of heat if not even cheeses would be chile-infused. Take this Pecorino for example, kicked up with plenty of pepper pieces. This tasty cheese made from sheep’s milk is almost adddictive, and we took home a whole loaf.

Even down here, many vendors are equipped to vaccum-seal cheese and smoked meats for you, a great way to preserve it while you’re traveling. We loaded up our hotel room’s mini bar refrigerator and brought everything home perfectly fresh. (If you’re traveling from abroad, that’s a different story of course – food import restrictions may apply, especially when entering the U.S.)