GROTTAMMARE
This fair, which is still held on 11 November, the day dedicated to San Martino, was originally a popular fair, linked to the economy of the second half of the eighteenth century and based mainly on the exchange of raw materials and agricultural products with semi-finished products or finished products. In the stalls you can find everything, including inviting local food specialties, countless types of desserts, but in San Martino we especially celebrate the arrival of new wine, which you can taste with the inevitable roasted chestnuts. A curious event connected to the feast of San Martino is the so-called “horned race”, of whose birth there are no precise news: someone believes that it derives from the custom of the Longobards to celebrate the saint with large military parades in which helmets were worn of showy horns; others argue that it derives from the fact that the farmers who participated in the fair “made horned” the owners, also bringing the products that were intended for them. However the tradition has remained and, to avoid any misunderstanding, during the San Martino banquet the most awaited dish is a celery salad (“lu sonnere alla cazzimberie”) which, being seasoned with a lot of pepper, is considered aphrodisiac and therefore offered in particular, to men, so that their wives do not come the vagueness to betray them.
