Felitto fusillo pasta

History and origin

Felitto fusillo has nothing to do with the short spiral pasta sold in shops. In Campanian tradition the fusillo belongs to the family of maccaruni pertusati, or pierced macaroni, and in Felitto, in the province of Salerno, it has taken a shape of its own: long, thin and made with a dough very rich in eggs.

A legend recorded by the Campania Region places its birth in the 16th century, during a siege of the village: after more than ten days of resistance the commander asked the women to cook with whatever was left, and they created the fusillo from eggs and flour. Legend aside, the tradition is centuries old and has been handed down from mother to daughter.

While elsewhere in the Cilento the fusillo was an everyday farmhouse dish, the Felitto version was pasta for great occasions: Easter, Christmas, Carnival, the feast of the Madonna and that of Saint Vitus, the village patron. One custom has a plate of fusilli set aside on Carnival evening and given the next day to the hens, as a wish for fertility. Today it is a Slow Food Presidium and is listed among Campania's traditional food products.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Fusillo di Felitto · Regione Campania — Fusillo di Felitto (prodotto tradizionale) · Masaf — Elenco nazionale dei prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali, XXVI revisione (2026)

Area and method of production

The fusillo is made all year round in the municipality of Felitto, at the heart of the Cilento, Vallo di Diano and Alburni National Park. The dough is durum wheat semolina, usually of the Senatore Cappelli or Saragolla varieties, with plenty of eggs, six to eight per kilo, and a pinch of salt. Authentic fusillo has no water: just a drop of extra virgin olive oil to grease the hands at the last stage.

The semolina is heaped into a well on the board, u scanaturu, eggs and flour are worked by hand into a smooth dough, which then rests for an hour or two. The village women pinch off portions by eye, cut them into strips and cingulate them, rolling them between their hands into cylindrical cords.

The last step uses u fierru, a very thin square-section steel rod one millimetre thick: once it was made from umbrella ribs, today local craftsmen forge it. The rod is pressed into the cord, then with quick movements the pasta is stretched to more than twenty centimetres. Slipped off the rod, the fusilli are laid straight on linen cloths to dry. The Presidium has also revived the raw materials, replanting Senatore Cappelli wheat and sourcing eggs from free-range hens.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Fusillo di Felitto · Pro Loco Felitto — Il Fusillo Felittese · Regione Campania — Fusillo di Felitto (prodotto tradizionale)

How to recognise it

Felitto fusillo is a pierced macaroni, long and straight, with a clearly visible central hole. The Pro Loco gives a usual length of 25 to 32 centimetres and a slim thickness of two to four millimetres; the regional record speaks of hollow cylinders of 18 to 22 centimetres, and the Presidium of more than twenty.

The colour ranges from the golden yellow typical of egg pasta to amber tones, depending on the flours used and how they were milled. What sets it apart above all is the long handwork, the richness of the dough and its regular shape, obtained by drying the fusilli neatly aligned.

Presidium producers follow farming, rearing and processing methods based on organic principles: the wheat comes from hill or mountain land, the eggs from local farms and the little oil used from local varieties pressed nearby.

Sources: Pro Loco Felitto — Il Fusillo Felittese · Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Fusillo di Felitto · Regione Campania — Fusillo di Felitto (prodotto tradizionale)

In the kitchen

The traditional dressing is a sauce of castrated goat, more rarely mutton, finished with a sprinkling of pecorino or Cilento goat's cacioricotta. It is a feast dish built from the goat meat and goat cheese of the Cilento.

Precisely because it was pasta for great occasions, Felitto fusillo was made in quantity for Easter, Christmas, Carnival and the patron saints' feasts, and making it was women's know-how, passed down through the generations.

The Pro Loco also mentions a winter version presented during the Sapori d'Autunno event. The fusillo also features on restaurant menus in and around Paestum, and is often served at promotional fairs across the province and the region.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Fusillo di Felitto · Pro Loco Felitto — Il Fusillo Felittese

Where to taste it

The place to taste it is Felitto, a medieval village of the Cilento in the middle of the Calore valley. The fusillo is available all year in the village's trattorias and farm restaurants, but the most heartfelt event is the Sagra del Fusillo Felittese, organised by the Pro Loco every August since 1976: for the occasion the women of the village, from the eldest to the youngest, spend days making and cooking it. In October it returns at the Sapori d'Autunno event.

Felitto also guards one of Campania's most striking landscapes, the protected area of the Gole del Calore: some 120 hectares of gorges dropping to the river, from the medieval bridge below the village to the boundary with Magliano. Along the paths you find rare ferns and horsetails, potholes carved by the water and the natural bridge of Pretatetta, and otters live in the river.

Visitors to the Cilento can combine a day in the gorges with a plate of fusilli, perhaps continuing towards Paestum.

Sources: Pro Loco Felitto — Il Fusillo Felittese · Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Fusillo di Felitto · Pro Loco Felitto — Le Gole del Calore

Protection

• Slow Food Presidium — fusillo-di-felitto (Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Fusillo di Felitto)
• Traditional agri-food product (PAT) — Campania, n. 437, 26th revision (Masaf — Elenco nazionale dei prodotti agroalimentari tradizionali, XXVI revisione (2026))

When

• Production: all year round (Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Fusillo di Felitto)
• Event: August (Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Fusillo di Felitto)

Where

Campania