What to eat in Collelongo?

 

Collelongo has a wide cuisine that ranges from appetizers to main courses up to desserts. Clearly, as mentioned in other dissertations, the Marsican cuisine is very veried, as its history is long:

The local change in the drying up of the lake forced most of the fishermen to become farmers and, starting from the mid-1900s, after the agrarian reform, to become agricultural entrepreneurs. However, this great change has not sterilized the old Marsican cuisine, but rather has expanded it with other products and therefore other dishes made exclusively with strictly organic local products.

This has made the area very rich and varied and this is clearly perceived in the various local cuisines of the various towns in the Marsican area. Logically, when we mean rich cuisine we are referring to popular dishes and certainly not  to the dishes served in the rooms of the nobles. Collelongo, having always been made up of a people of farmers and shepherds, fully represents this in its dishes. In fact, in the gastronomic field we find “poor” dishes, but equally rich in nutritional values and low in fat.

In the Marsican cuisine the main animals raised have always been pigs, sheep, goats and cows, therefore the diet has never strayed away from these foods. To this it must be added that the population of Collelongo as well as that of the rest of the Marsica is also a people of farmers and therefore in the Marsican dishes an important use is made of starchy foods, producing a lot of bread and polenta pasta, etc.

 

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APPETIZERS

The appetizers that are served in Collelongo are different and depend on the festive occasions or seasons, etc. For example we find boiled corn which can be seen as a kind of appetizer, or another classic mountain appetizer concerns ham with melon, clearly we are talking about local ham.

 

 

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FIRST DISHES

Collelongo also in the choice of first courses does not keep you waiting and gives us various delicacies with which you can lick your mustache. Let’s talk about Gnecchitte with chickpeas, a dish that is served on big holidays and concerns small dumplings with legumes. Other typical dishes are the Frascaregghie and the Sagne pelose. The first is a traditional dish that is prepared on Christmas Eve, while the second concerns fettuccine without eggs and represents a very poor dish typical of the Marsican peasant culture.

So we have Pane Cotte and Acqua cotta, these are two poor first courses that were made for shepherds and farmers. In the first a sort of bread comes out with lots of vegetables, the second looks like a big minestrone. Another succulent first course is pasta with zucchini or saffron, which are typical local products. Finally we remember the Pizza Roscia composed of pork and a pizza made with white and red flour.

 

 

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SECOND COURSES

Collelongo is also famous for some main courses that well represent the agro-pastoral tradition such as the Pecora ajo cotturo, a typically Marsican dish, the Frittata with the Pantanara, which represents an omelette seasoned with a local herb that is difficult to find, but very good in terms of smell and taste. Finally we find the potato and sausage flan, both absolutely local ingredients.

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DESSERTS

Finally we close with the typical desserts of Collelongo, which are different and are typical of the Marsican area and among these there are some that are well present here in Collelongo. Among the typical desserts there are the Cicerchiata, the Pizza Dolce and the Sassi of Abruzzo.