From this table you can follow the links to holyday and celebration recipeswith pictures of the Catholic and laic tradition. Our attention is concentrated in all the regional traditions and in the symbolic value given to the food across the time. Easter recipes, Christmas recipes, late night menu, all-saints day, all-souls.day, halloween.
the great celebrations
All Saints Day and All Souls Day
1st and 2nd November
meini
All Saints Day is a Christian tradition which goes back up to the 13th of may 610 bc, although the tradition of dedicating a day to all the martyrs and saints is older.
The celebration of All Souls Day is pre Christian and the use to celebrate it the first days of november has a Celtic origin.
As for each traditional celebration day there are culinary traditions, particulary it is used to prepare special cakes as "Bread of Dead","meini" and "Beans of the Dead".
Christmas, in the Italian tradition, is the main celebration day of the family and naturally the most liked place for its celebration is the table!
The traditional recipes for Christmas menu are very various, as our cuisine, so it would be very difficult to mention all and maybe not necessary. Every family has its own unavoidable recipe, but also new recipes are welcome...the important is to be together
Among the cakes the most known are the Panettoneof Milan and the Pandoro of Verona. The only point is the difficulty they require for being prepared in the home oven. Otherwise there are other very good and easy to prepare as the Bisciola from Valtellina, here in the in the picture, the cream of mascarponeandtronchetto di natale
By the tradition the last day of the year up to the first day of the new year people eat food whose symbolic value is traditionally linked to the fertitilty: particulary are considered symbol of good chance lentils and rice, which symbolise the money: so it is necessary to eat much of them for becoming reach during the new year!
For the llate night menu the pork is also considered of good chance, as in the past it was considered a rich food (there was few meat on the tables). So cotechino and zampone are "mandatory" in the late night menu!
The day of Saint Valentine is a celebration day from English and Northern American tradition. In this day the lovers show their love each to other with gifts and,naturally, with special food. There is not historical proof for connecting Saint Valentine with the romantic love...But the tradition, wich began with a poem of Chaucer, wants this saint as couples protector.
It is the most important of all the Christian celebration days, due to the fact that it is celebrated the resurrection of Jesus.
The recipes of the Italian tradition for Easter are all connected with the meaning of this miraculous event: are present in each menu the eggs, due to their symbolic value of transmutation