Among the Franciscan tertiaries of Umbria, there is no French-style starter or dessert: there are days of abstinence and feast days, marked by the liturgical calendar. The ordinary fare is reduced to bread, water, and a legume pottage from the garden and the pantry (farro, chickpeas, broad beans, lentils), drizzled with a trickle of olive oil from the hills. On strict fast days, only bread and water; on major feasts (Easter, Saint Francis' Day), a little honey, dried fruit, or watered wine cheers the community. Food is always thought of as prayer: one eats little, shares, and offers to the poor and pilgrims.

A trickle of green gold pressed around Foligno and Assisi, oil is the only luxury allowed: it perfumes bread, binds the pottage, and sanctifies frugality. It is the fat of the poor and the monk, present even when everything else is lacking.