A Gluten-Free Festival at the Cascine: A Sagra for Everyone

I’ve always had a soft spot for sagre — Italy’s little food festivals. Especially the ones with a fluorescent poster stapled to a pine tree, graphics that look like they were made in Paint, and huge black letters announcing: SAGRA DEL [anything, as long as it’s edible].

Those posters you catch out of the corner of your eye while driving down a country road, windows down and cicadas in the background, that you don’t even need to read all the way through. Tortello, wild boar, frog, potato, mixed fry — it hardly matters. You already know that somewhere nearby there are endless communal tables, house wine, and someone who, at a certain hour, will get the Alligalli going.

My summers have always been marked out like this. The fish sagra in Lido di Camaiore, the ones for tortelli, pici, potato, and wine during weeks spent in the Maremma, the mixed-fry one in Pozzolatico organized by the Lebowski supporters’ club. And I could go on and on…

Because in the end I love everything about a sagra. I love eating on wooden benches, I love the simple dishes, the ones that taste of home cooking and are usually made by people who certainly don’t need to look up the recipe on Google. I even love the endless lines at the till, the volunteers running back and forth, the house wine, and above all that inevitable moment in the evening when someone puts on the liscio and suddenly people of every age start dancing together.

Trashy? Maybe.

Beautiful? Absolutely.

For me the sagra has always been mostly this: feeling part of something. Eating, drinking, being together. Without too many pretensions and without too many worries.

Then I became celiac. And, as with many other things in my life, going to a sagra suddenly became an operation that requires a fair amount of planning. Because just try going to the tortello sagra and asking: “Excuse me, do you make them gluten-free too?” Obviously not.

So in recent years I’ve kept going, because being celiac is almost fine by me, but giving up the company is not. Only, while they order tortelli, little fried things, pici, and whatever else is the star of the party, I show up prepared with my lunchbox or my saddest homemade gluten-free sandwich.

If I’m lucky I drink the house wine. Gluten-free beer, though, is often nowhere to be found.

And so there I am, mouth watering as I watch my friends eat everything I’d like to be eating too.

That’s why, when I found out that from September 10 to 13 a festival entirely dedicated to gluten-free food is coming to the Cascine, my attention was immediately caught.

It’s not exactly a sagra, even if in my head it’s already become the sagra of the gluten-unlucky.

For four days, the Piazzale delle Cascine will host one of the stops on the Festival Senza Glutine, Italy’s first traveling festival dedicated to 100% gluten-free food, run in partnership with AIC — the Italian Celiac Association.

The thing that interests me most of all? Obviously that I can eat everything.

No interrogation at the food truck. No “sorry, but do you fry it in the same oil?” No friends sent ahead to scout for cross-contamination. No emergency crackers in the bag.

The food-area vendors will be part of the AFC network and will come from all over Italy with burgers, Sicilian cannoli filled on the spot, arancini, potato rösti, and many other specialties.

And there’s gluten-free beer, too. As far as I’m concerned, we could call it a day right there.

But beyond the food, there will be a market area for gluten-free producers and companies, local businesses, talks, testimonies, showcooking, and other moments dedicated to celiac disease and nutrition. The full program is still being defined, so for now we don’t know exactly what will happen over the four days.

I do have one request, though: put on the Alligalli!

Because it may not be a real sagra. There won’t be fluorescent posters stapled to pine trees, probably no Maremma grandmother rolling tortelli backstage, and I seriously doubt anyone will pour house wine from a plastic jug.

But after a summer spent, once again, watching everyone else eat at the sagre and reckoning with everything I couldn’t taste, for four days I want to feel the thrill of being on the other side. The one who arrives, looks at all the food trucks, and simply thinks: “What do I feel like eating?” Without reading the allergens. Without asking questions. Without a plan B. Like a normal person.

In fact, this time it’ll be my gluten-eating friends coming to my sagra. Welcome to our world, everyone. The gluten-free beer is on me!