Fagioli di Paganica

Beans have been grown around Paganica for centuries on deep, cool alluvial ground watered by streams off the mountain springs, the crop concentrated in the basin of the Vera, which rises on the Gran Sasso. Until a few decades ago it was a real trade, selling locally and into the Terni and Rieti provinces. There are two ecotypes, both long in the cycle at 160 to 180 days, climbers that go to two metres up willow poles, and they differ in colour: one is the fagiolo a pane, also called the fagiolo ad olio.