I can’t recall a single summer that didn’t include at least one evening spent following hand-painted signs toward a local sagra. It isn’t exactly a food market, nor quite a village fair; it feels more like an entire community carrying its kitchen outdoors for a few warm nights.

When I think about those childhood evenings, the first image that appears is a woman’s hand clenched above a pan of shimmering oil. With her thumb and forefinger forming a tight circle, she would press soft batter through the gap, dropping one small portion at a time into the heat. Within moments, each pale lump transformed into a pittula, a typical fritter from Salento: puffed, irregular, golden, too hot to bite into immediately yet impossible to resist.

I was born in Salento, the heel of Italy, at the southern edge of Puglia, and raised in Taviano, a small town below Lecce. Summer holidays abroad were something other families talked about. For us, as for many in the area, summer meant loading the car and shifting from our house in town to a smaller place by the sea, just a few miles away.

That seaside neighbourhood was Mancaversa, part of Taviano, where the Sagra tu Furese (held in mid-August, dates to be confirmed) — in local dialect, the farmer’s festival — seemed to draw the entire village outside for supper. From a child’s height, it was a blur of legs and overlapping voices. I remember tugging at my parents, impatient with their habit of stopping every few steps to greet acquaintances seen only in summer, as we edged toward the stalls near Piazza delle Rose. There, men stirred embers with scraps of cardboard, sausages crackled on grills, horse-meat stew bubbled in tomato sauce, and gnummareddi — rolls of lamb offal — tempted the brave.

Music drifted from a small stage, and the village turned into an open-air living room. People gathered over dishes that were everyday food for us, yet almost baffling to visitors who came to Salento seeking beaches and glaring white light. No one described them as culinary adventures. They were simply how summer was done — and in a country where eating out can quickly grow costly, they still make it possible to have dinner for around €15.

At times, my parents, my brother, my sister and I would drive inland to Cannole. On the way, we passed through villages that all appeared to be celebrating something. Only later did I realise that those roadside banners formed a kind of map of the Italian summer — one I would eventually follow far beyond Salento. Each sign pointed to a community gathered for a few evenings around a dish that belonged uniquely to them.

Cannole — a town of just over 1,500 residents — lies on the far side of Lecce province, toward Otranto and the Alimini lakes. Since 1985, the local volunteer association Pro Loco Cerceto has organised the Festa della Municeddha (10–14 August), dedicated to the small snail long rooted in the area’s home cooking.

The municeddha is prepared in three main ways: stewed in tomato sauce, slowly cooked with onion and olive oil, or roasted. Whichever version you choose, the ritual is identical: extract the snail from its shell with a toothpick and eat it standing. Today the festival is sizable, with music, numerous stalls and rows of occupied tables — far more polished than the modest event I remember.

Roughly 400 miles north along the Adriatic coast, in the Marche region, lies Campofilone, perched on hills above the Aso valley. Since 1964, its Sagra dei Maccheroncini di Campofilone IGP (7–10 August) has elevated an extremely fine local pasta — maccheroncini — into the centrepiece of a communal banquet. Even thinner than usual, made from semolina and eggs, it cooks in barely a minute. Once drained, it is mixed with a rich red ragù of assorted meats on wide wooden boards. The fragile strands, so delicate when dry, bind together into a glossy, compact mass before being served.

If you plan to attend the Sagra del Fusillo Felittese (13–23 August), set aside at least half a day. Leave the Cilento coastline in Campania and head inland toward Felitto and the Gole del Calore, the gorge carved by the Calore river. The festival began in 1976 in the hamlet of Remolino, using fusillo — meaning little spindle — to attract visitors back to the village. The draw remains the pasta itself: fresh egg dough shaped by hand into long hollow strands around a slender iron rod. It is typically paired with castrato ragù, traditionally made from goat meat of a castrated male animal, or with veal ragù.

Anyone who has spent time near Modena or Bologna in northern Italy will likely have passed through Castelfranco Emilia. I moved to Modena at 18 to study and have lived there ever since. At first, Castelfranco seemed like a town you simply drive through, but over time I have grown fond of such places, where traditions are maintained without fanfare.

The tortellino — claimed by both Modena and Bologna — finds neutral ground here. According to legend, it was created in Castelfranco at the Locanda Corona, when an innkeeper glimpsed Venus’s navel through a keyhole and shaped his pasta in its likeness. In reality, tortellini are made from thin sheets of egg pasta folded by hand around a filling of pork loin, prosciutto di Modena, mortadella di Bologna, Parmigiano Reggiano, egg and nutmeg. In this town, they are served in steaming capon broth.

Each September, Piazza Bergamini hosts the Sagra del Tortellino Tradizionale (4–14 September). I remember the square filling with long communal tables, queues forming at payment counters and bowls of hot broth circulating steadily. Later, a parade moves along Corso Martiri like a small Renaissance procession: women in brocade dresses and veils, men in caps and doublets, banners and music, with the innkeeper and noblewoman at the centre of the story that gave tortellini their distinctive shape.

I arrived in Vipiteno, in Alto Adige/South Tyrol, one September as northern Italy’s summer began to cool. The Sagra dei Canederli (13 September) unfolds during the day. What struck me most was its precise organisation: a 400-metre table covered in gingham stretching through the historic centre, guests taking their places, menus shifting from one section to the next, plates of dumplings appearing in sequence. It feels less like a fair and more like an alpine dining room extended into the street, with folk music echoing in the square and mountains close enough to feel part of the setting.

A canederlo is a dumpling born of thrift — stale bread combined with eggs and milk — transformed into one of the valley’s signature dishes. In Vipiteno, they are served in broth or enriched with speck, mushrooms, cheese and herbs; sweet versions are filled with apricots or plums.

Sicily marks the southern edge of the sagre landscape. I came to know Giarratana through the onion that carries the village’s name, in the island’s south-east. In August, these onions anchor an open-air feast and support a small seasonal economy, drawing visitors eager to taste them at their source.

The Giarratana onion is large, flattened and notably sweet, recognised for its quality and heritage. During the Sagra della Cipolla Giarratana (12–14 August), traditionally linked to the feast of San Bartolomeo, it fills market stalls and long tables along the streets. It is served raw and thinly sliced with olive oil, salt and cheese; baked whole or stuffed; or tucked into scaccia, a local folded flatbread. Alongside are hot dishes, preserves, regional wines and music.

Giarratana is small, so it is wise to arrive before nightfall and leave your car outside the historic centre. If rooms in the village are unavailable, nearby towns such as Ragusa, Modica or Chiaramonte Gulfi make convenient bases.

The Italy of the sagre is too vast to fit inside any single dining room. For every polished dish set beneath a silver lid, somewhere else a ticket number is being called through a crackling microphone, and dinner is being ladled from a pot far larger than any found in a home kitchen.