Festival delle Sagre

Asti plays annual host to Festival delle Sagre, a food and wine event featuring over 40 small Piemontese villages. A park is dedicated to the food and wine staging, each town proudly serving its specialty dishes from solidly constructed booths evocative of countryside homes.

I heard not a word of English among the several hundred people in attendance. I walked the park for an hour, feeling an equal measure of wonder and confusion, before I understood the protocol-- Each village house sells tickets for food redeemed at that specific site; tickets are sold an hour before the food is available; it's perfectly acceptable to knock to the ground anyone standing between you and the food server, etc.

But what I couldn't wrap my brain around was this-- for the price of about 75 cents, you are provided an empty glass to be worn around the neck in a pastic Festival holder. With this investment, you get free wine from each village vendor. Three different villages explained this to me, slowly, before I understood that "gratis" really did mean free. They were very patient with me, though I certainly appeared the idiot of several villages. This, before the wine was served.