Cortale - Beans in all sauces

From the Calabrian greenhouses, products without equal

Vocation is a term that is not only used in the spiritual field. It happens to read, for example, about an area with a vocation for olive trees, or vines, or any other agricultural product, when it offers results of clearly above-average quality. Consider the case of Cortale, a municipality between hills and mountains along that singular corridor that briefly connects the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Ionian Sea: fertile soils, an abundance of water, regular breezes and remarkable temperature ranges.

Mountain legumes and what a mountain!

It comes as no surprise, then, to learn that this municipality has a historic source of pride in the production of the most versatile of legumes, the bean, of which local growers over the centuries have selected as many as five varieties: white Reginella, yellow Reginella, white Cannellina, yellow Cocò and white Cocò. Common characteristic, the delicate skin and ease of cooking, but each, with a specific culinary vocation: the bean that is at its best in a salad with a drizzle of oil; the one that goes perfectly with scilatelle, the traditional short pasta of the place; those that are perfect for a soup, formidable the one that combines them with the mushrooms of the Serre.

A festival that keeps an ancient custom alive

Over everything, however, is the classic fagiolata, which recalls the image of the terracotta piñata placed on the hearth. A true gastronomic icon, not coincidentally the protagonist of an autumn festival, supported by the handful of producers and restaurateurs who, meritoriously, under the banner of Slow Food, have fostered the revival of this product after a long period of decline.