Molise
Molise is Italy's least-visited region, a small, mountainous province-sized territory between Abruzzo and Puglia. It cooks a short repertoire well: hand-rolled cavatelli, a lot of pork, the caciocavallo cheese of Agnone, and a surprising quantity of truffle.
Molise only became a region in its own right in 1963, when it was split off from Abruzzo. It has two provinces, barely 290,000 inhabitants in total and 35 kilometres of Adriatic coast. Everything else is mountain: the Matese in the south, the Mainarde on the western border, clay hills in between. Threading through it are the tratturi, the ancient droving roads along which flocks walked to winter pastures in Puglia: the best-preserved network in Europe, still readable in the landscape as hundred-pace-wide green corridors. Where the flocks went, people ate mutton, cheese and pulses, and that remains the skeleton of the cooking.
Agnone, a hill town better known for the bell foundry that has been casting since the Middle Ages, makes the region's best-known cheese: caciocavallo, a stretched-curd cow's milk cheese tied in pairs and hung to age from three months to two years. Nearby they also make stracciata, a fresh folded sheet of the same curd, and the salame called signora di Conca Casale, produced by a handful of families in a village of a few hundred people. At San Martino in Pensilis, pork ribs and shoulder are seasoned with sweet and hot paprika, sealed in a pan and baked in a wood oven until they collapse, a dish called pampanella, sold from bakeries on Sunday mornings.
The truffle is the surprise. Molise, roughly the size of an average Italian province, yields a very large share of the national truffle crop, mostly around San Pietro Avellana in the north. For decades it left the region anonymously and was sold under other names, which is why nobody associates the two. The same happened to Tintilia, a native grape that nearly disappeared and was recovered in the 1990s; above 400 metres it makes a peppery, fresh red.
Everyday food is flour and water. Cavatelli are dragged into shape with two fingers and dressed with mutton ragù or spicy ventricina; laganelle go with beans; and the Trigno valley makes a polenta from potatoes and wheat flour rather than maize. On the coast, Termoli cooks its own fish stew in an earthenware pan with green peppers: a completely different kitchen, twenty kilometres from the hills.
Signature dishes
- Cavatelli con ragù di pecora (hand-rolled pasta with mutton ragù)
- Laganelle e fagioli (pasta ribbons with beans)
- Pampanella (paprika-baked pork)
- Brodetto alla termolese (Termoli fish stew with peppers)
- Pallotte cacio e ova (cheese and egg dumplings)
- P'lenta d'iragn (potato and flour polenta)
- Caciocavallo di Agnone (aged stretched-curd cheese)
- Fiadone (baked cheese-filled Easter pastry)
Foods from here
When to go
On 30 April, San Martino in Pensilis and Ururi race ox-drawn carts through the streets in the Carrese, the rawest event in the Molise calendar. Summer brings black truffle fairs and the fishing season at Termoli, the jumping-off point for the Tremiti islands. Autumn is transhumance season along the tratturi, when new caciocavallo goes into the ageing rooms and Tintilia is picked. In November, San Pietro Avellana holds its white truffle market. On 24 December, Agnone stages the 'Ndocciata, a procession of fir-wood torches metres high: the region at its most visible, and the same weeks that pork and pampanella come into their own.
Frequently asked
What is Molise known for?
Molise is Italy's least-visited region, a small mountainous territory between Abruzzo and Puglia that only became a region in its own right in 1963. Its food is a short repertoire done well: hand-rolled cavatelli, paprika-baked pork called pampanella, the caciocavallo cheese of Agnone, and a surprising amount of truffle.
Is Molise worth visiting for food?
Yes, if you want somewhere unhurried. The tratturi, ancient droving roads a hundred paces wide, are better preserved here than anywhere in Europe, and the villages along them still cook mutton, cheese and pulses. Agnone makes caciocavallo and casts church bells; Termoli, on the coast, cooks its own fish stew.
What is pampanella?
Pampanella is the signature dish of San Martino in Pensilis: pork ribs and shoulder rubbed with sweet and hot paprika, sealed in a pan and baked in a wood oven until the meat collapses. It is sold from bakeries on Sunday mornings and eaten with bread, not as a restaurant dish.
Does Molise really produce a lot of truffle?
Yes. The region is roughly the size of an average Italian province, yet it yields a very large share of the national truffle crop, mostly around San Pietro Avellana in the north. For decades it left anonymously and was sold under other names, which is why the connection is little known.
When should I visit Molise?
Late autumn and winter. November brings the white truffle market at San Pietro Avellana, and on 24 December, Agnone stages the 'Ndocciata, a procession of fir torches metres high. On 30 April, San Martino in Pensilis and Ururi race ox-drawn carts through the streets in an event called the Carrese.