San Giovanni Lipioni - Traditions and Specialties

Traditions and Specialties

On Labour Day (May, 1st) a colourful pageant is held throughout the village's high streets to celebrate lu Maje (The May), a circle-shaped wooden cane decked with small bunches of wild pink underbrush violets and other spring flowers and carried at the forefront of the pageant, which kicks off at the main church soon after the late morning mass. The flowers are then gifted to all families of the village during the door-to-door parade. A marching band plays along while food-and-drinks stalls are set out on the streets.

In early August, when the village comes alive with expatriates, night-time food feasts (called sagre) are common. One of these is the sagn' app'zat (literally "sagnas cut into pieces"), which are freshly made, slightly thick pasta layers sliced into rough 5x5 cm squares and eaten with a simple basil-and-tomato sauce, extra-virgin olive oil, and occasionally topped with lumps of ricotta cheese and/or bits of sliced spicy red chillies.

On every second Saturday of October, the food feast of the scurpelle — simple salted sourdough batons, 20-to-30 cm long, deep-fried in olive oil and eaten as such, accompanied by a glass of new red wine — is made to celebrate Santa Liberata.

Another worth-mentioning specialty, also common to most villages in southern area of Chieti's province, is the ventricina, a usually round-shaped salami made of fresh pork finely chopped and mingled with bits of lard, ground dried red medium-spicy peppers, fennel seeds, and coarse salt, usually prepared during the colder winter days of January (after the first snow falls it is tradition to slaughter a pig), then hanged on the ceiling in a dry room and seasoned for usually 1+ months until ready to be sliced and served with freshly baked bread as an appetizer. At the same time, fresh pork sausages and pig liver sausages and several varieties of salami are prepared as well.