Gastronomy
The traditional cooking in Fresa is simple but it is also different because it has used, and still keep on using, all kind of seasonal products, always available. For example wild mixed vegetables, horsetail bud crumbed and fried, green olive treated with salt and then eaten at dinner with bread. Cheese are very typical, made with goat’s or cow’s milk, and we have also different kin of delicatessen such as ventricina, than here we call viscìca, salsicciotti and salsicce ( typical and local made sausages), soppressata made with pork fillet meat. Then we have also other kind of delicatessen, made with selected meat, and seasoned only with salt, fennel seeds, red powered pepper and then they are left to be aged.
First courses are almost always home made pasta, with or without eggs. There are different kinds of pasta such as chitarre,lasagnette, tacconelle, cavatelli, tagliarelli, cifilloni, ( the name of pasta depends on the shape pasta has), francobolli with potatoes or with chickpeas or with beans or peas or mushrooms, and then polenta made with wheat or maize flour and seasoned with sausages or ventresca, potatoes or filled aubergine. In the past used to be served a kind of pizza made with maize flour, and also with black turnip, or with pieces of ventresca or red pepper, and then also boiled corn, meat and peas stew, broad bean soup, courgette with potatoes, omelette with asparagus and peppers and many others ideas receipts come out of our women’s fancy.
Second courses (in the past second courses were served only on feast days, nowadays they are served only when there is enough time) are farmyard stuffed chicken, or rabbit, or pigeons, or duck, cooked with tomatoes souse or in the oven, and also roasted pork, or lamb, or eggs and cheese ball, seasoned with almonds, and at the end the porchetta in the oven, which is very famous and popular in all the villages hereabout. Porchetta is a little pork, about 20-30 kilos, made with a special care and following an old receipt and cooked in the oven.
In conclusion nothing that could be eat was wasted, and often deliciousness were made out of poor ingredients., and one of this was called triccitelle. I said “was” because it used to be very popular in the past in the country houses, when nowadays, due to the different life style, it is not cooked anymore because it takes a long time to prepared, and it has been replaced by the most popular tin of tripe or wurstel.
Here it is the receipt for triccitella: tender and little lamb entrails, are sliced and well washed with salt and streaming water, and then lard has to be added, with also parsley, marjoram, intestinal diaphragm of lamb, garlic, powered red pepper and salt.
Making: weave the entrails, alternating layers of lard, parsley, garlic and salt and wrap up in a veil, (which is not a fabric, but it is a kind of veil that is around the animal lung) then tie it up with a thread. Put it on grill over the coals. It has to be eaten hot, and like a corn-cob.
Another dish prepared with scraps was (and it still is)lu sanghitille. Necessary: blood of lamb or goat, which gathered when they are killed, red pepper with seeds, pieces of guts, well washed.
Put the blood pot to boil. When it is cold, it has grown hard. Chop it, than put it in another pan with all the others ingredients.

What are most famous in Fresa are cakes, and every kind of cakes or biscuits fits to a seson or to a feast.
For example i taralli are made in May on the occasion of the pilgrimage , scrippelle, calcionetti,and zeppole are made on Christmas time, cicerchiata for Carnival, pupa, fiadone e cavallo (horse) are made for Easter.
But the king of Fresa’s cakes is, well known also hereabout, is the ciallarichieno, a cake then is so good only we can make so good. It’s a kind of cake that fits on feasts such as Weddings, Confirmations, Baptisms, birthdays an so on.
It is prepared in two times: first for the filling, and second for the pastry. This receipt is for about 30 slices, 150/200 gr. Filling: ¼ of boiled must (mostocotto), 250gr of black cherries jam, 150gr of toasted and chopped walnuts, vanilla, ground orange peel, 50gr of toasted grated bread, grated cinnamon. Pour the mostocotto in a pan and let it boil, while mingling put the jam, bred, vanilla, orange peel, cinnamon, and then almonds and walnuts. If the dough is too thick, put some marsala or coffee in It. Take it out of fire and let it cool down.
The pastry: 2 eggs, 150gr of sugar, ½ of white wine, ½ lt of olive oil, wheal flour.
Knead all the ingredients and then spread a thin pastry. With the specific knife for pasta , cut the pastry into little rectangle. On each rectangle, with a spoon, pour the filling and then close it. Join the opposite edges, as a circle shape. Strew some sugar on the top, then put the little sacks in the oven at 180°, for about 30 minutes. Then let them cool down before eat.