La badia degli acciugai: il cibo delle feste nell’area alpina occitana

It is a well-known fact that food represents the deepest substratum of traditional ritual time. Starting from this consideration, the essay analyzes the relationship between food and the feast in the Occitan Alps. This border area is characterized by the presence of “badìe”, festive associations that still today organize the cycle of the year and of life. In this context, the festive dynamics of the “badìa” of Sant’Anna di Celle di Macra will be explored, which in more recent times tends to be recognized as the "badìa" of the anchovies sellers, a transformation of meaning of the feast that is based on the work of the local anchovies merchants: a seasonal migration aimed at selling salted fish in the territories of the Padan Plain.