Storia e curiosità

The restaurant, ‘The Hay barn’, is located in an old barn where the hay was stored in winter for our cows. Today the restaurant is on the second floor of the renovated Antica Cascina Brandimarte or the Old Dairy Brandimarte and it represents a link between past and present. The kitchen offers dishes for which Castelluccio is famous, made from produce grown on the farm, or with high quality products purchased from local farmers including breeders who have a track record of producing safe, excellent meats. In the kitchen Mrs Maria Rita Brandimart prepares the dishes based on what she learned from her mother Adua. Nothing seems to have changed when you taste the old-fashioned style pasta, soups, local meat and sweets.

I nostri piatti per il Menù della Sibilla

Homemade noodles with roveja (Available all year)
The goodness of this dish lies in the texture of the homemade noodle, made with love and porous enough to hold the tasty flavour of the sauce. The delicate flavour of roveja, a variety of wild pea grown in fields of Castelluccio, enriches the undisputed goodness of the pasta. The dish is finished with a garnish of parsley to give colour and freshness, and Umbrian olive oil for a definite and rotund touch.

Cosa c'è nel piatto

The products used...  

Roveja is a wild variety of pea, known since Neolithic times but it has almost disappeared from cultivation. While there are various pea cultivators, roveja is only found in Central Italy where it is cultivated principally in the Marche and in Umbria by farmers who want to diversify and who appreciate ancient traditions. It is sown in March and the pods ripen in July. They can also be harvested when ripe and have a more floury taste as compared to common peas. Initially the pod of the roveja pea is green but when mature it becomes a dark purple. The colour of the fresh seeds can vary from green to grey, while the dried seeds tend to dark brown. The flowers are purple.

...And their producers  

The farm of Brandimart Maria Rita, via Libya, 58 – Castelluccio, Norcia (PG)

Place of production  

Castelluccio di Norcia

Production Method  

The farming of this crop is made possible by flourishing, natural, untouched land such as that found around Castelluccio, without pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers.

These products help biodiversity

Traditional agricultural practices without the use of herbicides, pesticides and chemical fertilizers, encourage the presence of a great variety of plant species, which generate the spectacular colourful flowers for which the Plains of Castelluccio are world famous. Many animal species are undoubtedly assisted by these healthy environmental conditions. In particular, the presence of many species of insects creates the necessary condition for other animal species, particularly birds that feed upon insects. The most significant species of this environment is the partridge, a galliforme that was once widespread but whose particular type, the ‘italiaca’, has now virtually disappeared. Typically the partridge lives in environments where traditional agriculture is practiced and it has colonized the Plains of Castelluccio, although this land is located at a higher altitude than is usual for the species. Other species characteristic of this type of farming are different granivorous and insectivorous passerines and small prey, such as the kestrel and the lesser kestrel.