Buon San Giuseppe ! (Happy Saint Joseph’s Day)

Today is Father’s Day in Italy. And also the feast day of Saint Joseph, the day when Italy wide, Italians celebrate Mary’s husband with a special pastry made in his honor.

The pasty takes different names depending what part of Italy has prepared it. Zeppole is the name in southern Italy, or sfinge di San Giuseppe. In Rome we call it the bignè di San Giuseppe. Why is Joseph honored with a pastry ? One legend recounts that during a period of unemployment as a carpenter, Joseph prepared and sold bignè himself. Bignè are made with flour, milk, butter, egg and lemon rind, are deep fried (in olive oil ideally), puff as they fry, then are filled with a pastry cream and sprinkled with powdered sugar.

Bignè are taken very seriously in Rome. Baked or fried, for example ? (Fried of course.)

Our Italian water dog Teddy takes them very seriously.  He waits all year for his. (Fried, and large.)

This man at Pasticceria Dolci Desideri was despairing as his number seemed never to be called, and he had been waiting and waiting for the signorina to prepare a tray of bignè for him to take home.

Every year Insider’s Italy awards a top prize for the best bignè from among the pastry stores where we are on that day. One year we undertook our contest in Naples, and on another year in Florence. Another year we were in Parma. But this year we had the advantage of being in Rome, and thus could in the days before March 19, sample bignè  across Rome until we had a short list of competitors.

Difficult work, of course, but someone must do it, and who better than Insider’s Italy ?

Today, the actual Festa di San Giuseppe, saw the final competition, with three contenders jostling for top prize.

Who would it be ?

The bignè di San Giuseppe from Roscioli ?

The smaller bignè di San Giuseppe from Dolci Desideri ?

The bignè di San Giuseppe from Volpetti ?

Isabel, a serious bignè connoisseur,

and Robert, with the “Papa” crown on his brow,