The Felitto Fusillo

When most people think of fusilli, they think of the short, spiral-shaped pasta found wherever you look – incidentally the third most popular pasta shape in circulation. But in the Cilento hills of Campania, fusilli di Felitto are more than just a pasta shape – they have a deep cultural imprint.  In the southern Italian tradition, particularly in Campania, fusillo is a pasta belonging to the maccaruni pertusati family of noodles with a hole in the middle (in the past the term “maccheroni” was used for all pasta that was not formed from flat sheets, and still today it is used in many Italian regions to refer to long pasta).

Made only for the most important feasts – Easter, Christmas, Carnival, or the town’s patronal celebrations – the Felitto fusillo begins with a rich dough of durum-wheat semolina and eggs, sometimes as many as eight per kilo of flour. No water is added; just a trace of olive oil on the palms to guide the final kneading. Tradition holds that on the eve of Lent, a few precious strands would be set aside for the chickens, an offering for fertility and good fortune.

The making itself is a kind of choreography, handed down through generations of women. Each piece is cut by eye into strips called cinguliate, rolled into ropes, and pierced through the center with a thin metal rod – once fashioned from old umbrella spokes, now made by local artisans. With swift, practiced movements, the dough is stretched and coaxed into length, the hole running cleanly through.

The finished fusilli are hung to dry in perfect lines before being cooked and served in their most traditional form: with a slow-cooked sauce of goat or lamb, finished with grated pecorino or cacioricotta cilentana. The result is a dish of rare depth – earthy, tender, and bound to the rhythm of the village.

A traditional dish we particulary like is Fusilli al Ragú di Agnello, made with Marco Rizzo’s olive oil which comes from Felitto itself.