Atranese sarchiapone: the dish for the feast of St Mary Magdalene

Each town on the Amalfi Coast is distinguished by a typical dish that is usually prepared on special occasions. In Atrani, the smallest municipality in southern Italy by territorial extension, on 22 July, the day of the celebrations in honour of Santa Maria Maddalena (patron saint of Atrani), it is customary to prepare sarchiapone. As the bells ring out in celebration, an intoxicating perfume wafts through the narrow streets and alleyways, foreshadowing a meal according to tradition. Preparations for this delicious dish start even days in advance and respect the original recipe to the letter.

But what does Atranese sarchiapone consist of? Considered by many to be the ancestor of cannelloni, its basic ingredient is ‘cucuzzèlla “e pèrgola” or “cucuzza longa” (i.e. long gourd), which is stuffed with minced meat, cheese, salami and chopped eggs, fried and then baked in the oven with plenty of tomato sauce.

Its origins date back to the 1960s, when Don Vittorio Proto, a traveller and merchant from Atrani, decided to pay homage to Saint Mary Magdalene with a recipe he had learnt during his last trip to Calabria. Together with Orlando Buonocore and his wife Luisa, owners of the restaurant Le Arcate (which still exists today), they revisited the dish in honour of Atrani’s patron saint. As for the name, the term sarchiapone was not entirely new. The actor Walter Chiari had used it for a character in one of his macchiettas, but in Atrani it was chosen in memory of the protagonist of the Cantata dei Pastori, whose tall, thin figure recalled the very pumpkin used in the preparation of the dish.

For those who want to prepare Atranese sarchiapone at home, here is the recipe.

Ingredients

2 long green pumpkins
180 grams minced meat (veal and pork)
50 grams of grated Parmesan cheese
200 grams of tomato puree
2 eggs
1 mozzarella
salami (or cooked ham) to taste
1 onion
1 tablespoon oil
salt to taste
pepper to taste
flour to taste

Procedure

First prepare the tomato sauce. Heat the oil with a pinch of salt and the chopped onion until it starts to brown. Add the tomato puree and let it simmer for a few hours until you get a nice full-bodied sauce.

While the sauce is cooking, take care of the pumpkins and the filling. Scrape off the rind of the pumpkins and cut them into pieces of about 10 centimetres. Then empty the resulting cylinders of seeds and inner pulp. Separately, in a bowl, mix the minced meat with the mozzarella cheese, chopped salami (or cooked ham), an egg, Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper until the mixture is compact and homogeneous.

At this point, the pumpkin cylinders should be filled with the prepared mixture, floured, dipped in beaten egg (also salted and peppered) and slowly fried in oil at a not too high temperature. Once cooked, arrange them in a baking dish sprinkled with a thin layer of tomato sauce (now ready). Then cover the pieces with the remaining sauce and bake at 180° for about 40 minutes, turning them from time to time.

At the end of cooking … the pleasure is assured!

Photo © Miria Onesta 2 Amiche in Cucina