Abruzzo Culture

Abruzzo's cuisine reflects its mountain, shepherding past more directly than almost any other Italian region's -- arrosticini, small skewers of mutton grilled quickly over embers, are the region's signature dish, born as portable food for shepherds driving flocks along the tratturi. Saffron from the Navelli plain, among the most prized in the world, and pasta alla chitarra (cut into strands using a guitar-string tool) round out a food culture built on what the mountains actually produced, not imported refinement.

Sulmona is famous for confetti, sugared almonds shaped into intricate flowers and bouquets for weddings and celebrations, a craft with roots stretching back centuries in the town.

Abruzzo's folk-religious traditions run unusually deep for a region this size. Cocullo's Festa dei Serpari («Festival of the Snake Catchers»), held every May, involves parading a statue of San Domenico draped in live, non-venomous snakes through the town -- a rite with roots that likely predate Christianity itself. The region's mountain isolation also preserved a distinct Abruzzese dialect group, still spoken alongside standard Italian in many interior towns.