But how good are pici, those made by hand or at any rate by artisans, with a meat sauce typical of this area, or in limit all’aglione or with crumbs.
Today pici is a cut of pasta that has become known everywhere, a Made in Siena worldwide, is offered in restaurants and festivals in other towns outside the Val d’Orcia, in the province of Siena, and is also commonly found as an industrial production.
But pici is a truly Sanquirichese dish.
Suffice it to say that a few kilometers away they are called differently: in Montalcino, for example, they call them ‘pinci,’ while in Pienza even ‘lunghetti.’
As early as the early 1960s, San Quirico had a ‘pici festival,’ a dish so common that it was valued on special occasions and with institutional guests and tourists. As in the case of the days of the Festa del Barbarossa, when-as reported in the newspaper La Nazione (June 1, 1967)-mayor Carlo Sorbellini’s guests were ‘won over’ by fabulous dishes of handmade pici and a glass of excellent red wine from these hills.
Pici that were at the restaurant and at the booth and were prepared by the skilled hands of Sanquirico housewives. Even today, pici are a standard-bearer of San Quirico cuisine: found in restaurants, and still made by hand in homes and village associations.
Those made by hand, based only on water and flour, are often coarse and irregularly shaped, ‘spaghettoni’ with great texture and flavor. More ‘regular’ in shape, of course, are those produced by artisanal pasta makers.
Then all that remains is to taste and eat them with gusto; in San Quirico, home of pici, you are spoiled for choice.
