In collaboration with
In a hidden corner of the Marches Apennines, among the silent curves connecting the mountain hamlets of Acquasanta Terme to those of Arquata del Tronto, there exists a small outpost of cultural and civil resistance: the Slow Food Community of Favalanciata. Here, in the homonymous small and characteristic village of the Ascoli inland, an ancient legume, humble and tenacious like the land that produces it, has managed to become a symbol of rebirth after the 2016 earthquake. A seed, or rather a handful of seeds, as a living link between memory, community, and a viable future.
The protagonist of this story is the Favalanciata bean, cultivated for generations in the private gardens of the town. Like many marginal crops of the Apennines, it has become an emblem of identity and social cohesion.
Here, where it carries the etymology of the name. After the consequences of the earthquake in 2016, which severely affected the entire Piceno area, compromising homes and habits, something deeply simple began to stitch the torn fabric: the act of cultivating, harvesting, and eating together.
The earthquake left Favalanciata wounded, but not extinguished.
While the outside world spoke of uninhabitability and depopulation, some residents decided to start with a small ancient gesture: sowing.
It was the way to not get lost, to find oneself together and still feel part of something. The bean, resilient and adaptable, symbolically close to the condition of the mountain man, has become the heart of a new idea: to transform a local cultivation into a community project.
In 2018, the Slow Food Community of Favalanciata was officially established to promote broad beans, with a double objective: to safeguard agricultural and especially cultural biodiversity, as well as to rebuild a grassroots social network made up of people, both young and old, families, and food enthusiasts. The logic is not only about gastronomic recovery but also about caring for one's garden, the territory, and relationships.
The work of the members of the Community is not limited to cultivating their own land. There is research, selection, seed preservation, and exchange of knowledge between generations and distant countries. But above all, there is
the idea, all Slow Food, that food can be a cultural lever, a human bond, and a driver of local development. The workshops with schools, the trips around Italy, the shared lunches or dinners around a plate of broad beans, have rekindled the sense of belonging. At a time when internal areas risk becoming “non-places,” Favalanciata resists and tells its story precisely through its cultural biodiversity.
It's not just agriculture, it's not just gardening. It's cultural resistance.
It is the idea that cultivating and sharing a seed is also an act of faith, especially when that seed becomes a pretext to stay, to return, to believe again in a way of life rooted in the land, in natural rhythms, in the community. The fava bean of Favalanciata today is protected, cooked in a thousand variations and in different places, but above all it has become a symbol of rebirth. Its self-produced seeds, ready to be planted in private gardens every autumn, according to ancient cultures and procedures, silently tell a story different from that of the post-earthquake chronicles: a story of cohesion, care, and vision. That of a community that, through the humblest of legumes, has chosen not to forget who it is, and to continue to grow. Together, for a viable future.
