Posted on March 19, 2019
In the Catholic Church, March 19 is considered the feast day of Saint Joseph, father of Jesus. The day is celebrated in a variety of ways in various parts of the world. In Sicily, and for Sicilian Americans, it's all about food!
Here, Italy is shown in pale cream/yellow, except for Sicily, which is red.
The thing about Sicily, aside from its strategic importance (location, location, location), is that much of the island has mild winters, but in the summers the island often catches a strong wind from the Sahara Desert, and it can be really-really-really dry and scorchingly hot!
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| Fava beans |
The peasants that lived in Sicily centuries ago of course grew their own food, and they were sometimes plagued with long periods of no rain.
Their cuisine depended on plants that didn't need much water, crops that were drought resistant. Fava beans, chick peas (aka garbanzo beans), and fennel all became important foods because they could withstand drought.
The Sicilian St. Joseph legend (note that "Saint Joseph" in Italian is San Giuseppe) tells a story of a particularly long drought. The people of Sicily were getting desperate, and many prayed to St. Joseph. When rain finally came, it seemed that St. Joseph had answered the people's prayers, so the people created altars to St. Joseph and brought offerings of food as a thank you.Check out some of the altars that have been put up nine days before St. Joseph's Day. They are often decorated with statues and greenery, and flowers and fava beans, oranges and lemons, prayer cards and candles - all crowded together! On St. Joseph's Day itself, people gather together with a huge feast that traditionally includes the drought-resistant fava beans, chick peas, and fennel. Guests come to enjoy the feast.
After the feast, the altar offerings and decorations plus any leftover food are packed up for the guests to take to their various homes.
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| Instead of putting cheese on their pasta or soup, many people use "poor man's cheese" as a topper - and that means seasoned bread crumbs! |
In some Sicilian-American communities there is a St. Joseph's Day parade. New Orleans always has a parade on this feast day:
Another St. Joseph's Day tradition is for three children to dress up as Joseph, Mary, and Jesus. They go door-to-door, knocking and asking for shelter. When they arrive at the feasting house, they enter and join in the festivities. That sounds like the Las Posadas Christmas tradition in Mexico and Latin America, doesn't it?
These days, St. Joseph celebrations tend to be less community oriented, at least among Sicilian Americans, because people are always so busy and because they tend to live scattered all over rather than in tight-knit communities. That means that large altars, huge feasts, and the knocking tradition, called Tupa, tupa, are mostly a thing of the past. Still, nearby family members often gather for much smaller feasts, and some families use the day to give food to charities.
