From Piedmont to China, from New York to Japan, everything is ready for Bagna Cauda Day 2024.
The world’s largest collective bagna cauda is scheduled for the last two weekends of November and from January 29 to February 2, 2025 with the Bagna della Merla. A Bagna Cauda Caravan will depart from Liguria for Asti where the Olympic “fujot” will be lit on November 23.
We’re almost there: it’s time for Bagna Cauda Day! It’s the largest collective and contemporary bagna cauda in the world. It will be celebrated in more than 170 venues including restaurants, historic cellars, and agritourism, with over 48,000 seats available at the table. The initiative is promoted for the twelfth year by the Astigiani Cultural Association, which allocates its profits to concrete solidarity actions. This year with a new feature: no longer two, but three weekends: November 22, 23, 24 and November 29-30 and December 1, to which the Bagna della Merla is added January 29-30-31 and February 1-2, 2025.
Many adhesions all over the world: from China to New York
The event, spread throughout Piedmont, Valle d’Aosta and Liguria, also has significant presences abroad. It will be the Pezzana family to perfume London : Silvio Pezzana, originally from Conzano, will prepare with his brother Alessio and his wife Pippa a bagna cauda as God commands in his house in Hackney in London, open to friends on the weekend of November 30.
In China, the first Bagna Cauda Day at the Noi Mediterraneo Restaurant in Wuhan, owned by Roberta Menin from Asti. In Shanghai, the celebration is with the Shanghai Piedmont Association, led by the lawyer Adriano Zublena, with a traditional Bagna Cauda “Come Dio comanda” on November 30.
Bagna Cauda at the aperitif at Bar B – Basta Pasta’s in New York , while Japan doubles: chef Yuji Hayashi will offer it in his two restaurants The Momentum by Porsche and Tanta Roba in Tokyo. A new entry is the Osteria Pomo d’Oro in Budapest, which will celebrate the investiture of the new knights of the Order of the Knights of the Truffle and the wines of Alba with a sumptuous bagna cauda on Saturday 1 February. It’s also the first time in Slovakia, in Bratislava, at the Café Cortellazzi Food & Beverage Restaurant and at the I Tre Somari Restaurant, which will participate in the Bagna della Merla, from 29 January to 2 February. And this year, the ritual will also be renewed in Burundi : Elisabetta Pietrobon, Ambassador of the European Union, will bring bagna cauda to the African state.
The Bagna Cauda Caravan from Liguria to Piedmont
Bagna Cauda Day 2024 is enriched with a new event: a caravan of vintage cars that, starting from Liguria and going up the Col di Nava, will arrive in Piedmont to bring – like the three wise men – the “foreign” ingredients of bagna cauda: the new oil of freshly pressed Taggiasca olives and anchovies from the Ligurian Sea. There will also be garlic from Vessalico.
On Saturday 23 November, on the trail of one of the ancient salt routes, a group of vintage cars from the Camea club of Asti , with the support of Asti Energy , will set off from Badalucco, one of the towns in the Argentina Valley, one of the capitals of Ligurian oil, famous for its medieval bridges.
From Piazza Marconi in Badalucco, the town of the historic Roi oil mill , the caravan, greeted by the Ligurians after the symbolic delivery of oil, anchovies and garlic, will climb the hairpin bends of Col di Nava, then descend into Piedmont along the Tanaro Valley. Before arriving in Asti, it will pass through Nizza Monferrato to stock up on cardoons, the queen vegetables of every bagna cauda and barbera ( Cantina del Nizza ). The arrival in Piazza Libertà in Asti is scheduled for 5:30 pm, where a large fujot (the typical stove for bagna cauda) has been set up, which will be lit like a brazier by Olympic athlete Alice Sotero, the pentathlete who represented Italy twice at the Tokyo and Paris games.
The Cloth Bib
It is the BCD flag. All bagnacaudisti who will go to taste bagna cauda in the participating places will receive as a gift the Bavagliolone in fabric that this year is designed by the young artist Giorgia Sanlorenzo who interpreted the motto “Esageruma nen the world belongs to everyone”. A strong call to defend planet Earth, our common home so mistreated. Esageruma nen is a Piedmontese expression that means let’s not exaggerate.