Pea festival

Sunday, May 31st, Casalborgone (TO).

Pea omelette, Voul-au-vent with pea sauce, Lasagne with peas, Gogu (pea-stuffed ravioli) with butter and sage, meat stew with peas.

I, Maddie and Mr. Bentley at Casalborgone

"Madam, has it been a long time since they make this festival?" I ask to the nice elderly woman that is having lunch with another lady friend right in front of us. "Uhm... it could be atleast thirty years" she says thoughtfully. It looks like in these little villages they all know each other, in fact, sitting next to us, an old man that wants to tell us his opinion at any rate intervenes: "No way! it is atleast fifty years!". After that they say something in Piemontese dialect that i cannot understand. Then the lady, facing me again, adds "Here, for this event, in the past they also used to sell a lot of peas. Then the Lancia factory [car industry nereby] came and the young people preferred a reliable job to the pea plantations. They sold up to two-three hundreds quintals [1 quintal = 100kg = 220lb], you know?" and the elderly man "Two-three hundred? They passed also one thousand quintals!". I love chatting with these people! "I heard there are also guided tours in the historical center town. Is it nice to see?". "It's wonderful" she says, "...it's worth to go to see, although, in only 20 minutes by foot you can see everything there is to see" - "20 minutes? - It will take at least one hour and a half if one wants to see really everything!"... and so on, tit for tat for the whole duration of the lunch.

The festival organization is really good, you pay before at the cashier, choosing from the displayed menu, they give you some tickets with the names of the dishes. When you sit at the table, the efficient volunteers for the local tourist board collect those tickets, and soon they come back soon with the chosen plates and drinks.

For the guided tours at the center town, there is an electric tourist train with three or four wagons ("in the past there were 20 wagons" the elderly man ensures). We preferred to go by car to avoid waiting for the next run. The center is actually very small but it looks carved in History. Every garden is full of colored flowers, every lane opens on a new landscape in the Monferrato hills.

At the typical products market we bought a couple of kilos of peas and some other products.

A lovely day passed in a place of peace and harmony.

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