I joined some friends over the weekend to attend the first local sagra of the season, the Sagra della Polenta in Viepri, Umbria, just 20 minutes east of Todi.  Yes, a local festival to celebrate polenta, a very popular dish here in Umbria.  For those of you not familiar with polenta, it is ground corn similar to grits and me being from the southern U.S., a particular favorite of mine.  As this is the first festival of the season it was packed very early on Sunday night, early by Italian standards.  Every sagra is staffed by volunteers from the local hosting village -men taking your tickets and pouring beverages, women in the kitchen, children from 6+ graciously serving the tables.

Polenta is a very common dish in Umbria and you will see it on most restaurant menus in this region of Italy.  In the past and sometimes still today, polenta is served on a large wooden communal board topped with various sauces.  Historically, Umbria was a poorer, more agricultural region than neighboring Tuscany so the locals could not afford a lot of meat.  The idea of serving on the large board is you ate from the sides into the middle and soon your stomach would be so full that you would forget about the meat.

Below you can see the polenta board with the most common sauces; four cheeses, ragu, truffle and wild boar.  My favorite is the four cheeses but the wild boar sauce is by far the most popular.  A sagra always includes live, local music and dancing which continues well past dinner late into the night.

Most towns host an annual sagra for one or two weeks in either spring or summer.  Each town offers a unique theme and I try to go to most as they are such good fun, a local experience I never want to miss.