{"id":231011,"date":"2026-01-16T10:07:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T09:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/recipe-the-cuccia-di-castelmezzano\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T14:36:56","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T13:36:56","slug":"recipe-the-cuccia-di-castelmezzano","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/traditional-cooking\/recipe-the-cuccia-di-castelmezzano\/","title":{"rendered":"Recipe: the Cucc\u00eca di Castelmezzano"},"content":{"rendered":"

ALSO FOR VEGANS<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The cucc\u00eca is a typical dish of the village of Castelmezzano<\/strong><\/a> (Potenza) handed down from ancient times, nicknamed also as a pot of the poor, has as main ingredient wheat, beans, chickpeas and cicerchie. Tradition sees it tied to the celebration of Saint Lucia. According to a legend, once there was a tremendous famine that was decimating the population. On the day devoted to the Holy One in a year and in an place unspecified, a great load of wheat came to the population. Hunger was so great that the people, instead of grinding the ingredient to make bread, began to boil and eat it. It would seem that the name comes from the chef’s cry when the dish was ready: “cuc\u00eca, cuc\u00eca”, is cooked.
\nAnother hypothesis about the nature of this dish comes from the Greek word “Ko (u) kk\u00eca”, ie wheat.
\nDuring Saint Lucia’s day, the cucc\u00eca\u00a0is blessed and, at the end of the mess, is distributed among the faithful in goodwill. In the same period in Castelmezzano is celebrated the Festival of the Ci\u00f9c during which you can enjoy this typical dish.\u00a0If you visit Castelmezzano you can taste the cucc\u00eca at the Agriturismo La Grotta dell’Eremita<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

But let’s see how to prepare it at home.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Ingredients<\/h3>\n

Wheat
\nChickpeas
\nBroad beans
\nChickpeas
\nPepper
\nOil
\nGarlic
\nSalt<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Method<\/h3>\n

Preparation is really simple.
\nWe cook legumes and cereals separately, on a slow fire, after having them bathed in the previous evening to soften them and after rinsing them. Once cooked we mix them together and season with garlic, hot oil and pepper. The\u00a0dish is served hot in a rather large terracotta bowl.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

…Enjoy!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Discover Cucc\u00eca di Castelmezzano, a traditional Lucanian vegan dish with wheat, chickpeas, broad beans and chickling peas. Simple, nutritious and rich in history!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":343169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"single-post-blog-pro.php","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[1537],"tags":[164859],"village-conntection":[50537],"class_list":["post-231011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-traditional-cooking","tag-traditional-dish","village-conntection-castelmezano-it"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231011"},{"taxonomy":"village-conntection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.e-borghi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/village-conntection?post=231011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}