November 11, that is the feast of San Martino, has always represented a very important date in the peasant world that has preserved its tradition over time, namely the end of work in the fields and the beginning of the harvest. It has always represented a feast for the peasants who finally, after working in the fields, could uncork the first bottles of new wine and fill up the belly of chestnuts, grilled meat, capocollo and various doceltti, such as the typical bread of the dead of the month of November. In short, San Martino In Puglia has a single denominator: gathering at the table with good wine and food at will!

Legend has it that Martin, on 11 November, was in Amiens, in Gaul on his way back home. In the midst of a storm he met a beggar shrunken from the cold and with a gesture of generosity offered him half of his cloak. After a few moments, the rain stopped falling, the wind subsided and a beautiful sun came out to warm the temperature. So the legend predicts that the short three-day interruption of the grip of the cold is repeated every year to commemorate the magnanimous and generous gesture, given that Martin that same night had Jesus in a dream, who had words of esteem for the future saint, supporting that he was behind the beggar's disguise.

In Martina Franca, a few km from Casa Vacanze Il Vigneto, this day is even more important as it is the day of the Patron Saint. It is celebrated with the great fair that is held throughout the city, that is the animal fair, where you can admire and buy Murgese horses and donkeys, farm animals; the fair of butchers who prepare meat broth and porchetta; that of the exhibition of overhead masters, of household and food stalls. And there is no shortage of sellers of agricultural tools and "fair" characters, such as the gypsies playing the accordion, the madonnari and the peddlers of stockings and other trinkets.

On the laid tables, the famous capocollo of Martina Franca, a cured meat prepared with white wine D.O.C. of Martina and aromatic herbs of the Mediterranean scrub; its smoking takes place by burning the wood and oak bark of fragno, a shrub that is found only in Puglia and the Balkans, and even the pigs from which the capocollo meat comes are raised in the woods of fragno and feed on the acorns of those trees.

Another typical dish that you will find on the table in this period are fritters, in all varieties: from onion to tuna, with mozzarella, with mortadella and provolone, with turnips and meat. Real lecorie so loved by children who are anxiously waiting to leave school to run home to eat them!

Also in Martina Franca, on this very special day, you cannot miss the "ficazzede", slightly salty sweets in the shape of mini panzerotti, whose characteristic is precisely the contrast between the salty of the dough and the sweet of the jam of the filling . A true delight that must absolutely be tasted!

Saint Martin's day: not just wine and roasted chestnuts!