Teramo May Day soup — a ceremonial Abruzzese pot containing seven types of legumes, seven types of pasta, seven herbs, and seven new spring vegetables, cooked separately and combined, traditionally made on May 1st using last winter's stores and the first spring shoots.
Le Virtù ('the Virtues') is the legendary May Day soup of Teramo, documented at least to the 19th century (recorded in Giuseppe Savini's 'Lessico del dialetto teramano'), with mythic roots in the Greco-Roman Calendimaggio spring-fertility rite. The numerology is religious: seven of everything means 7 dried legumes (chickpea, fava, borlotti, cannellini, lentil, grass pea/cicerchia, etc.), 7 fresh spring legumes, 7 spring vegetables, 7 herbs/aromatics, 7 types of meat (cured ham, pork rind, pig's feet, lard, etc.), and 7 types of pasta, all cooked in seven hours, for the seven Christian virtues. Originally made by seven young women in the village, each contributing one ingredient. The point: empty the pantry of the last winter stores AND welcome spring's first shoots — a calendrical recipe that exists only on May 1st. Each component (legumes, pastas, soffrito, meat broth) is cooked separately for proper doneness, then combined the day-of. The Teramo Slow Food chapter has codified the canonical version.
The bowl arrives with seven legumes, seven pastas, seven vegetables, seven herbs all visible — chickpea here, a single fava there, a curl of orecchiette next to a long fusilli, a green tuft of fennel front, a feathered dill back. The broth is ham-rich, pork-fat-pearled, herb-perfumed. Each spoonful is a different combination. The textural variety alone is the point: the firm chickpea against the soft split pea, the al-dente pasta against the slumped artichoke. Every May 1st in Teramo, every household makes Le Virtù; one bowl invokes the whole calendar.
Each legume's separate cooking is essential — they have wildly different cook times (lentils 25 min vs chickpeas 90 min) and combining them undercooked or overcooked ruins the dish. The 4-hour ham broth dissolves prosciutto-bone collagen into gelatin, giving the soup its silky mouthfeel; without the bone, the soup is too thin. The seven-of-everything is more than tradition — the umami stacking (legume + ham + pecorino + herbs) creates flavor depth no single ingredient can reach. Add herbs at the end (heat destroys volatile oils).
Variations
Teramo Slow Food codified version (the canonical PAT); L'Aquila variant skips ham broth and uses dried mushroom water for vegetarian Lenten version; Pescara modernist restaurants serve a deconstructed Virtù with each component in a separate quenelle on a slate plate (purists object); some families use only 5 of each (lower numerology, looser tradition); the dish is impossible to make 'a little' — minimum 8 portions, traditionally 16.
On the Palate
Where Le Virtù sits in the Italian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 8
How it's made
9 steps · 3 hours active + 9 hours waiting
- 125 min
Day before — soak: 100g each of dried borlotti beans, cannellini beans, chickpeas, fava beans, large white beans, lentils, split peas (700g total dried legumes); soak overnight in cold water in separate bowls (lentils don't need soaking; soak the others minimum 8h).
- 2245 min
Day-of morning — broth: in a stockpot, combine 1 ham hock + 1 prosciutto bone + 1 small piece pork rind + 4L water + 1 onion + 1 carrot + 2 celery stalks. Bring to simmer; cook 4 hours. Strain broth, discard solids except meat (shred meat off bones, set aside).
Watch outSimmer the ham broth low and slow the full four hours — you want it just trembling, never a rolling boil, so it stays clear and turns silky from the dissolved bone gelatin.
- 395 min
Cook each legume separately to proper doneness: chickpeas and fava 90 min, borlotti and cannellini 60 min, white beans 75 min, lentils 25 min, split peas 35 min. Salt at end of each. Reserve cooking liquids.
Watch outCook each legume in its own pot to its own doneness — lentils bite-tender in twenty-five minutes, chickpeas creamy at ninety; one hard chickpea or one mushy lentil throws off the whole bowl.
- 422 min
Make sofrito: in 4 tbsp olive oil, sweat 1 large diced onion + 4 minced garlic cloves + 100g diced pancetta, 10 min. Add 2 diced carrots + 2 diced celery stalks + 1 leek (sliced thin), 10 min more.
- 513 min
Prep spring vegetables: 200g shelled fresh peas, 200g asparagus tips, 100g chopped spinach, 100g chopped chard, 100g chopped escarole, 100g shelled fresh fava beans, 100g chopped artichoke hearts (7 vegetables).
- 68 min
Prep herbs: chop 2 tbsp each of parsley, mint, marjoram, basil, dill, fennel fronds, and chervil (7 herbs). Combine in a bowl.
- 78 min
Combine: in a large pot, combine sofrito + reserved ham broth (about 3L) + all cooked legumes (with their liquids) + shredded ham. Bring to simmer.
- 812 min
Add the spring vegetables, simmer 8 min. Add 7 types of small pasta (50g each of tubetti, ditalini, cavatelli, orecchiette, fusilli, pennette, maltagliati — 350g total) directly to soup; cook 8 min until pasta is al dente.
Watch outDrop the pasta straight into the soup and pull it at al dente — it keeps softening in the hot broth, so a touch firm now is just right on the table.
- 99 min
Off heat, stir in the herbs + 50g grated pecorino + a healthy splash of olive oil. Rest 5 min. Serve in large bowls, more pecorino on top, ladling carefully to distribute legumes, pasta, and vegetables evenly. Make 8-10 large portions; freezes well.
Watch outStir the herbs in off the heat at the very end — their fresh aroma cooks off in seconds over a flame, so they go in once the pot is quiet.
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