Sagra del Cardo Gobbo e della Barbera
Late October, Incisa gives over a weekend to the cardo gobbo — the hunchbacked cardoon blanched under earth until it's pale and sweet — eaten raw with bagna càuda and poured alongside the local Barbera.
Why it's special
This is the cardoon's home ground, and the sagra treats it like the star it is: pappardelle in a cardoon sauce, the fried friciula handed round warm, and a whole town that's been doing this since the 1970s.
Programme · 2025
The 51st edition, three days across Borgo Villa and Piazza Ferraro.
- Come hungry and bring a little cash for the stalls.
- The friciula (fried dough) goes out mid-afternoon and doesn't hang around.
- It's in Incisa's Borgo Villa and Piazza Ferraro; the Comune runs it with the Pro Loco (tel.
- 0141 74040).
The cardo gobbo is the reason to come. Growers earth up the plants so the stalks blanch pale and lose their bitterness, then bend under the soil — the "hunchback" the name refers to — and by late October the crop is ready. Incisa Scapaccino turns that harvest into a weekend.
You eat it the local way: raw stalks dipped in bagna càuda, the warm garlic-and-anchovy sauce, with pappardelle in a cardoon sauce to follow and the fried friciula handed out in the afternoon. The Barbera d'Asti is poured young and honest, which is the point — this is farm food, not a tasting menu. Around the eating there's a charity walk for AIRC, a covers band running through decades of Italian radio, and stalls of local produce.
It's a proper village sagra, run by the Comune and the Pro Loco since the mid-1970s. Bring cash, and don't fill up before the friciula appears. Dates in the editions table above.