Prick the sausages all over with a fork and then place them in a frying pan with a drop of slightly heated oil. Turn them frequently and “toss” them, over a medium/high heat, shaking the frying pan for 25-30 minutes until they’re cooked. Remove the sausages and put them on one side. Lower the heat and immediately add the grapes to the frying pan. Mix them with the cooking juices and leave for 5 minutes to let the flavours emerge. Now turn up the heat again, add the sausages that you put on one side and continue cooking everything together for 7-8 minutes. Stir delicately in order not to break the grapes too much; they should shrivel slightly – but remain as whole as possible – at which point season with pepper, and the fennel seeds too, if you wish, cook for another minute and then remove from the heat.

This recipe, “revived” at the Fattoria for the Grape Festival, is very simple but has a long history behind it: it is found, word for word, in a famous old recipe book “Science in the kitchen and the art of eating well” by Pellegrino Artusi, 1891. The combination of sausages and grapes is spot-on because the grapes’ acidity counterbalances the fat from the sausages and completes them with its taste …the 2 flavours enhance each other.