Festival of the “nozza” waffle | Calcinaia

The “wedding “nozza” festival has been held for 49 years on the third weekend of May in the historic centre of Calcinaia. The festival used to accompany the feast of the patron saint, Santa Ubaldesca.
You can taste the typical dessert that, year after year, blossoms from the hands of women and men who work all day in the “laboratory” of the Deputazione di Santa Ubaldesca.

The nozza is a local dessert from the farmers tradition. It is a cone-shaped wafer with an aroma of aniseed and rosolio liqueur, excellent on its own or filled with whipped cream. Not to be confused with the brigidino from Lamporecchio, it is a wafer whose preparation has its roots in medieval carnival traditions. Compared to the more famous brigidini, the nozza is thicker, reaching up to 3 millimetres, and, above all, it is prepared with pure aniseed instead of aniseed liqueur.

The particular conical shape of the nozza is due to the fact that the dough, while still hot, is cooked on “ferri da cialda” (waffle irons) similar to those used to cook “necci” (flatbread) and then wrapped around bottle necks and left to cool. Once served at weddings (“nozze” in Italian, hence the name), the nozza is now prepared by local housewives according to the ancient recipe.