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APULICA / FRESH PASTA, BREAD AND PASTRY

Confetti di Sulmona (sugared almonds)

PAT · Fresh pasta, bread and pastry · Abruzzo

Apulica editorial team · Sources checked:

In brief

History and origin

Sulmona, Ovid's birthplace at the heart of the Conca Peligna, has its name inseparably linked to confetti, sugared almonds. Guides trace the tradition back to Roman times, and the oldest confetti factory was born here.

It was the master confectioners, from the late Middle Ages onwards, who made Sulmona famous far beyond Abruzzo. Their art is also expressed in decorative compositions unlike any other, and the town keeps the memory of confetti rosaries, made on special frames.

In 1988 one of the historic factories opened a museum dedicated to the art and technology of confectionery, declared a national monument by the Ministry in 1992: a rare case among museums of material culture. Sulmona confetti are on Abruzzo's list of traditional food products, in the pastry and confectionery section.

Sources: Italia.it — Centro storico di Sulmona · Italia.it — Prodotti e piatti tipici abruzzesi: la guida · Comune di Sulmona, portale turistico — Museo dell'arte e della tecnologia confettiera · Italia.it — Sulmona · Regione Abruzzo — Elenco dei prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali dell'Abruzzo, aggiornamento 2023 · Masaf — Elenco nazionale dei prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali, XXVI revisione (2026)

Area and method of production

Sulmona confetti start from a prized almond: guides note that only the Pizzuta di Avola variety is used. The almond is the heart of the confetto, and sugar forms its coating.

The town's museum recreates an eighteenth-century workshop and shows the tools of the craft: the copper coating pans, the roaster, the peeler, the slicer, the polishing machine, mills, mortars and multiple strainers for the sugar syrup. Glass jars hold the old ingredients used for the centre or the coating of the confetti.

The display also shows how steam and then electricity, with the first hot-air convectors and electric motors, greatly shortened the long hours the work required.

Sources: Italia.it — Prodotti e piatti tipici abruzzesi: la guida · Comune di Sulmona, portale turistico — Museo dell'arte e della tecnologia confettiera

How to recognise it

Sulmona confetti are recognisable by the Pizzuta di Avola almond at their heart and by a craft tradition that in the town goes back to the late Middle Ages. But the town is also famous for what confectioners can build with confetti: decorative compositions, wedding favours and objects that the museum keeps in a collection from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Confetti are the gift of celebrations, above all weddings. Guides put it with a smile: if Sulmona is your destination and you have a wedding coming up, stock up on confetti.

The museum also displays confetti that belonged to famous people, with their words about Sulmona confetti, and the frame used to make confetti rosaries.

Sources: Italia.it — Prodotti e piatti tipici abruzzesi: la guida · Comune di Sulmona, portale turistico — Museo dell'arte e della tecnologia confettiera · Italia.it — Sulmona

Where to taste it

Sulmona is the place to taste and buy them, strolling through the old town perched on a plateau in the Conca Peligna and surrounded by the Maiella National Park. Here you find the church of San Filippo Neri on Piazza Garibaldi with the arches of the Swabian aqueduct, San Panfilo cathedral, Palazzo Sanità, Palazzo Tabassi, the Santissima Annunziata, the Fontana del Vecchio and the statue of Ovid.

The museum of the art and technology of confectionery, housed in the Art Nouveau building of a historic factory on Via Stazione Introdacqua, tells the story of the town's confetti in three rooms over two floors.

The town is also known for its red garlic and for age-old rites such as the Madonna che scappa: one more reason to visit and take its confetti home.

Sources: Italia.it — Centro storico di Sulmona · Comune di Sulmona, portale turistico — Museo dell'arte e della tecnologia confettiera

Protection

When

  • The sources consulted give no months.

Where

Abruzzo

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