Funerale della Saracca

Each March in Oliveto, there is a sagra (popular festival) that observes the funeral of the saracca. The saracca is a fish similar to a sardine or a herring, which is usually preserved in salt. Because of its economy, the saracca was commonly considered to be the food of the poor. Thus at the very beginning of the spring, the funeral of the saracca celebrates the end of the hard winter months, during which which the poor relied primarily on this fish for subsistence.

The Funerale della Saracca is a very homegrown affair, where locals dress as if characters from a Breughel or Archimboldo painting, salamis and bread machines are raffled off, cheap wine is drunk by the demijon, and saracche are eaten in quantity with polenta. Olivetans also happen to make the best crescentine I have ever eaten.


Other features of the sagra are:
Traditional music,

and forming dog piles and rolling along the ground or down hills. A bizarre tradition whose significance I did not understand, but which nevertheless seems like a great idea after a liter of red wine.