Apulica — Taste Travel Together

APULICA / FRUIT, VEGETABLES AND PULSES

Controne bean

Slow Food Presidium · PAT · Fruit, vegetables and pulses · Campania

Apulica editorial team · Sources checked:

In brief

History and origin

Controne is a small village in the province of Salerno, surrounded by fields and olive groves that climb to the slopes of the Alburni massif, inside the Cilento and Vallo di Diano National Park. It is a land of olive oil and beans: growing pulses here has been handed down for centuries, and the bean has ended up taking the village's own name.

Farmers still sow several types, earthy in colour and lightly speckled: the fauciariello, named for its sickle-like shape, the lardariello, the suscella and the minichella. But the variety that made Controne famous, adapting to this setting over the centuries, is the white ecotype.

To protect it, the growers of the Slow Food Presidium worked with the Experimental Institute for Industrial Crops in Battipaglia, obtaining an agronomic and genetic profile of the bean and identifying the two best types, naturally selected over time.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Fagiolo di Controne · Regione Campania — Fagiolo di Controne (prodotto tradizionale)

Area and method of production

The Presidium area coincides with the municipality of Controne. According to Slow Food, the secret lies underground and in the water: a shallow layer of carbonate-rich rock has produced cool, fertile soils, and the many springs fed by the Alburni aquifer keep them ideal for beans.

It is a late bean. The Presidium gives sowing in the first half of July, while the regional sheet says May; either way harvest comes in autumn, between late October and mid-November, and the dried bean keeps all year round.

Many residents grow beans, but few on any sizeable scale: the slope and shape of the land allow only small plots and vegetable gardens scattered across the countryside. Presidium growers follow environmentally friendly practices, in keeping with the natural value of the national park. Of the two selected types, one is smaller and earlier but more delicate to grow, the other has a larger seed.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Fagiolo di Controne · Regione Campania — Fagiolo di Controne (prodotto tradizionale)

How to recognise it

The white bean of Controne is small, round or slightly oval and a very bright white, with no marks and without the «eye» found on many other varieties. The pod that holds it is pale too, a creamy white.

The skin is thin, and this explains two qualities for which it is appreciated throughout the region: it cooks far faster than an ordinary bean and rarely splits, so the beans stay whole after cooking. The Campania Region's sheet also stresses that it is very easy to digest.

Alongside the white bean, the village fields still hold brownish, speckled types such as the sickle-shaped fauciariello, witnesses to the range of seeds that families have kept.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Fagiolo di Controne · Regione Campania — Fagiolo di Controne (prodotto tradizionale)

In the kitchen

In the village the white bean goes into many typical dishes. The simplest is beans «al tozzetto»: a fresella dressed with extra virgin olive oil and boiled beans. Then there are beans with escarole, pasta e fagioli and làgane with beans, where fresh home-made pasta meets the pulses.

The dish is completed by local olive oil, made from native varieties such as Rotondella and Carpellese: a pairing that sums up the Controne landscape of bean fields and olive groves.

Short cooking and a skin that does not break also make it a handy ingredient for everyday cooking, because the bean stays whole and tender without hours on the stove.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Fagiolo di Controne · Regione Campania — Fagiolo di Controne (prodotto tradizionale)

Where to taste it

The place to go is Controne itself, in the Alburni area, in the northern part of the Cilento, Vallo di Diano and Alburni National Park. Visitors to the Cilento can come up here to see the small terraced fields and the olive groves at the foot of the massif.

The best time is the festival the village holds for its bean in November, after the harvest: the Campania Region's sheet places it on the last weekend of the month. It is the moment to buy the beans and taste the traditional dishes, from tozzetto to làgane.

For the rest of the year the dried beans can be found with the village growers, whose contacts are listed on the Slow Food Presidium page.

Sources: Fondazione Slow Food — Presidio Fagiolo di Controne · Regione Campania — Fagiolo di Controne (prodotto tradizionale) · Parco Nazionale del Cilento, Vallo di Diano e Alburni

Protection

When

Where

Campania