Typical dish of Agrigento
Fava Bean Maccu
Maccu di fave is a thick, velvety soup with a warm yellow color, made from dried fava beans slowly cooked until they become a rustic cream. The aroma of wild fennel and Sicilian extra virgin olive oil gives the dish an herbaceous and enveloping fragrance. On the palate it is soft, simple, and deeply nourishing, often served steaming hot as a first course on cooler days. Sometimes it is enriched with broken pasta or accompanied by homemade country bread.
Season: Autunno-Inverno€5–9
Why it matters
For Agrigento and the nearby area of Raffadali, maccu di fave is one of the most authentic symbols of peasant cooking. It tells the story of a rural Sicily made of humble yet skillfully used ingredients, where nothing went to waste and cooking was born from the land. Even today it represents a strong link with agricultural memory and with the family tables of tradition.
Origin story
The origins of maccu likely date back to the Greek era, when fava beans were one of the fundamental foods of the Mediterranean diet. The name derives from the Latin “maccare,” meaning to crush, referring to the creamy consistency obtained by pounding or slowly cooking the legumes. Over time the recipe has been enriched with local aromatic herbs such as wild fennel and, in some variations, with short pasta.
Typical ingredients
fave secche decorticatefinocchietto selvaticoolio extravergine d'olivacipolla
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