WTI Magazine #29    2014 May, 8
Author : folclore.it      Translation by:

Every last weekend of May the town of Celle sul Rigo, a hamlet of San Casciano dei Bagni in the province of Siena, Tuscany, has been offering for more than forty years the traditional Pici's festival, the oldest festival of the territory of San Casciano.

What are Pici? They are a typical kind of pasta of the Tuscan cuisine, hand-made with flour 0, durum wheat flour and water.

Once prepared by hand, the pasta is "spun", ie rolled with hands on a work surface until you get long spaghetti, then wrapped like a bundle and arranged on a floor sprinkled with semolina, waiting for the cooking. The more they are subtle, the more they are valuable.

At this point, the ability of the housewives of Siena lies in providing an excellent sauce that traditionally accompanies Pici: either with the "all'aglione" sauce, which, as the name implies, has a very garlic taste; or in a tomato and bacon sauce.

During the festival food stalls can be found along the streets of the village, together with the "school of pici" featuring workshops and lectures about the dough and the realization of Pici, and with musical and popular entertainment.

Pici's festival offers the opportunity to meet a delightful Tuscan village, Celle sul Rigo, which still keeps the underground caves ("celle") that are now used as cellars, and from which the town gets its name.

Also you can admire the stone-paved squares, the eighteenth-century pit at the center of the town, the thirteenth-century tower within a beautiful frame of green hills: a weekend of flavor and delight to the palate and to the eyes.