Sagra del Cardo Gobbo e della 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 · 2026

The 52nd sagra, listed for Sunday 25 October 2026 in Piazza Ferraro (organiser: Comune di Incisa Scapaccino). The programme (including whether there are Friday and Saturday evenings again, and the time of the bagna càuda) had not been published when we checked.

• 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 centred on Piazza Ferraro and the Foro Boario, with a tourist train up to Borgo Villa.
• The Pro Loco Incisa 1514 runs it with the Comune (tel.
• 0141 74040), and the Saturday polentone dinner needs booking.

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.