Buon San Giuseppe ! (Happy Saint Joseph’s Day)
I am republishing this because I have no new photos to share of succulent Saint Joseph’s day pastries from our pasticcerie. In these unspeakable days in Italy, not one pastry store is open. They have all been closed since March 12. Nearly everything has been closed.
I am republishing this because, at least in Lazio and south, this day is held very dear : not only the day when Papà are celebrated but also a chance to feast on a special pastry made in honor of Saint Joseph. To my knowledge, no other country makes a pastry in honor of this carpenter : that Italy does is only to their credit.
While normally my friends in Rome would today, at this hour, be mopping the last of the yellow cream from their mouths, and wondering why they ate three bignè di San Giuseppe, instead there is right now widespread worry, something close to despair. The countrywide lockdown is now on day 9, and in return for the sacrificio that Italians are making, it would have been powerful, during tonight’s 6 PM Ministry of Health briefing, to have heard that the curve is beginning to flatten.
Instead, this has been the most devasting day of all. There are 5322 new cases of diagnosed coronavirus in Italy today, and a record number of mortalities, 427. Italy’s death toll surpasses China’s, becoming the country with the highest number of coronavirus deaths in the world.
It was today hard to stop thinking about the photographs of coffins moving slowly, in convoy form in army trucks, to crematoria in Emilia Romagna. Bergamo, where those who died had lived, cannot keep up with the dead. Obituaries in L’Eco, the Bergamo newspaper, went from 1.5 pages on February 9 to ten pages on March 13. It was hard not to cry today after learning that the lockdown will be extended for many more weeks, hard not to feel anguish at the uncertainty, hard not to cry out to the world : BASTA ! (STOP !)
The crisis within Italy, mirrored now all over the world, is moving at a speed and scale never witnessed by living generations. To be in the eye of the storm, with a parallel drama just outside (closed) country boarders, is a nightmare beyond what most of us can imagine.
All the more moving was it then to recieve photographs this morning from Giocondo in Furore (Amalfi) and Mariagrazia in Rome : friends who had rallied, had butter and flour and sugar and eggs at hand, and had prepared their own bignè.
The Italy that we knew before this nightmare is still there, of course, and there will be bignè and zeppole again.
In the spirit then of celebration of a country that I love, and that I know you love too, comes my March 2012 “Buon San Giuseppe” (with a dedication at the end to my own Papa’, for whom Rome was the place that gave most joy.)
Italian Father’s Day falls today, in coincidence with the feast of Saint Joseph. And (especially from Lazio south) the day is associated with a very special pastry.
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, 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.)
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 Trani. Another year we were in Palermo. 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, was Judge 1.
… while Robert, wearing a Papa’ crown, was Judge 2.
To work ! Extensive work, with heated discussion and notes.
At the end :
Judge #2 : “Number 1 has the best balance of pastry and cream in terms of proportion of pastry to cream and is by far the winner for overall taste.”
Judge #1 : “You are wrong, Papa.”
And in loving memory of my Papa’, Howard, here with me on our Roman terrace.
Con Papa, 1967