Storica Fagiolata di San Defendente

Why it's special

The Pro Loco calls it one of the oldest traditions in Piedmont: around 1200, a man of Castiglione, Guglielmo Baldissero, left money on condition that every year a Mass be said for him and his family and a measure of beans be given to the village poor. The beans have been cooked and given away ever since, first by the confraternity of the Batì, then by the young conscripts and now by the Pro Loco. 2026 was the 826th edition. People still come with their own pots to carry the soup home, and the offerings go to charity.

Programme · 2026

826th edition. Beans and chickpeas, blessed and handed out free.

• Bring your own pot or container: the beans are ladled out for you to take home, as the tradition has always had it.
• The cooks start at 5:30 in the morning in Piazza San Defendente, and the beans are given out after the blessing at midday; come by 11:30 for the procession.
• The beans are free; the offerings collected go to charity (€3,000 to local causes in 2026).

On the second day of every year, the village of Castiglione, on the hills a few kilometres from Asti, gives away beans. Before dawn more than twenty volunteer cooks light wood fires under dozens of cauldrons in Piazza San Defendente and spend the morning slow-cooking around 400 kilos of beans with pork ribs and rind. After Mass, the brothers of the Confraternita dei Batì walk in procession from the church, the beans (and chickpeas) are blessed at midday, and then they're ladled out to everyone who has come, many of them carrying their own pots.

The custom goes back to a notarial deed signed, according to research by the canon Lorenzo Gentile in the 1930s, in the cloisters of Asti cathedral around the year 1200. To settle a dispute between the lords of the place and the cathedral chapter, a man of Castiglione called Guglielmo Baldissero offered to pay part of the money owed, on condition that after his death a Mass be said for him every year and a measure of beans be given to the poor of the village. For centuries the beans were begged, cooked and handed out by the confraternity of the Batì; in the 20th century the young conscripts took over, and today it's the Pro Loco 'La Castiglionese'. What's collected goes to charity.

The same Pro Loco cooks tripe for the village feast of San Martino in November and chickpeas for its carnival party, Cisi, Tripa e Carvè.