Every year in October, the cobblestoned marketplace of the medieval Italian town of Casola Valsenio brings history back to life and into the mouths of lucky visitors. The "Festival of Forgotten Fruits" harvests the bounty of local farmers who cultivate the exotic offerings on a "road of forgotten fruits" that runs between the Senio and Santerno river valleys.
A walk through one of these rich fields is a journey back in culinary time. Ancient, gnarled olive trees that may have been alive since the time of Leonardo dot the hills. Goats roam freely, occasionally nibbling at a tempting but unusually shaped berry or apple ripening in the afternoon sun. The nearby Benedictine Valsenio Abbey, now abandoned, lends the landscape a melancholy poetry that seems to go well with the concept of tasting fruits with piquant flavors that have died out almost everywhere in the world but here.
Looking at the baskets of harvested fruits, all of which are unfamiliar to the modern eye and tongue, reminds one of the famous poem "Goblin Market" by Christina Rossetti:
Morning and evening
Maids heard the goblins cry:
"Come buy our orchard fruits ...
Swart-headed mulberries,
Wild free-born cranberries,
Crab-apples, dewberries ...
All ripe together;
Come buy, come buy;
Dates and sharp bullaces,
Rare pears and greengages,
Damsons and bilberries,
Taste them and try ...
Getting a mouthful of history at the festival means tasting fruits that would have been familiar to the ancient Romans. Vulpine pears, rose apples, Neopolitan medlars, cornelian cherries and sorb apples are just some of the tasty treats that spill over the handmade baskets at the various sellers' stalls. Farmers show and sell local nuts as well as jams, syrups, wines and liquors derived from these fruits lost in the mists of time. Cheeses are also on offer, flavored with over a hundred herbs grown in a nearby historic greenhouse, which can also be visited And all along the medieval streets, under 100-year-old street lamps, Casola's charming, al fresco restaurants feature the fruits in recipes like pasta with pomegranate seeds. All in all, there's enough la dolce vita to make Fellini himself swoon.
Travelers addicted to tasting history can combine a trip to the Forgotten Fruit Festival with tasting tours of nearby cities like Faenza, Ravenna and the charming town of Brisighella, which has its own yearly festival every autumn dedicated to olives, truffles and polenta. Fly in from Bologna (nickname: "The Fat") and you'll see why - some of Italy's best food is on offer in this often, but unfairly overlooked Italian culinary capital. Italian Travel offers culinary trips to the region.
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