In Italy, a Sagra is a local festival that celebrates a certain food coming into season. I was recently introduced to these food festivals near the end of my reading of Under the Tuscan Sun. It sounds like such a lovely concept:
Sagra is a wonderful word to look fro in Tuscany. Foods coming into season often cause a celebration. All over the small towns signs go up announcing a sagra for cherries, chestnuts, wine, vin santo, apricots, frog legs, wild boar, olive oil or lake trout.
I like the idea so much I’m going to create some special meals, and maybe even the occasional small dinner get together, to celebrate our own harvests and seasonal foods as they come into season.
In our home, I credit much of the success of our unschool flow to the fact that we are very connected and in tune with seasonal rhythms. These guide our days, months, and years. Incorporating this idea of a Sagra into our seasonal rituals seems perfectly, and deliciously, fitting.
Today is Summer solstice and we celebrate this as midsummer. On this longest day of the year, with the sun about to burn a hot 94 degrees today, and a full moon waiting for us when the sun does finally set, the garden is exploding with the promise of great bounty. Tomatoes, while still green, are already starting to hang heavy. Cucumbers have sprouted long strands from there blossoms overnight. And the zucchini promise to crawl, sprawl and overtake the whole show.
Soon we will celebrate our very own little harvests and enjoy food so fresh you would’t dare disturb it with a recipe.
I’ll leave you with a little peek of our garden, as she grows, on this midsummer day.
Wishing you a happy Summer Solstice and much bounty as we move towards the dark half of the year.
