Carnival it's a pretty big deal in my town, we basically wait around doing nothing all year long until those 6 days arrive and we can go and merrily throw oranges at each others. But aside from the Battle of The Oranges there are lots of other events that bring all the town together in these days and cooking, as always, it's the biggest of all.
Fagioli grassi (fat beans) are without any doubt the most famous dish connected with the long tradition of Carnival food: simple, obviously a peasant dish, but rich in tasty ingredients. In fact hundreds of kilos of beans mixed with salami and rolls of pigskin are already boiling in huge cauldrons on Saturday evening, to be served to townspeople from the early hours of Sunday morning.
The tradition of charity beanfeasts dates from the Middle Ages, when beans, an important part of common people’s diets, were distributed to the poor by Ivrea confraternities.
We are also told that, once a year, the nobles of Ivrea used to give the poorest families pulses and dried beans, allowing them to use ovens to cook them free, the only concessions among the countless taxes that led them to starvation.
We didn't think of taking pictures of 'em once cooked, but this video shows the final result at another fagiolata held earlier in January.
And recipe, if you want to make em at home, even if they would never taste as good as the ones we cook out in the open.
