What about spending All Soul's Day in Italy?

If you are planning to come in Italy at the end of October, you’ll see how the Italians appreciate the English way to celebrate Halloween. But, few people knows that the celebration of the All Souls’ Day, is part of Italian culture too, even if here we don’t disguise ourselves to celebrate it. The Italian way to celebrate this day it’s almost the same in every Region of Italy: above all we prepare particular food (as almost all the festivities in Italy), and we have the habit to go to the cemetery, to visit the graves of our family members.

In some cases, after the dinner, people use to leave the table set, to make the spirit have something to eat.
Here we want to tell you some different things that the Italians cook in this day of the year. So, if you are in a particular area of our Country you’ll have the possibility to taste the Italian way to celebrate All Souls’ Day.

1) Veneto:

it’s habit to prepare the “fave dei morti” (lit. “broad beans of the dead”) they took their name from their shape and they’re made of almonds, covered with icing sugar. They can be of three colours: white, brown or pink. The habits wants that the lovers give these pastries each other to chase away the sadness of this day.

2) Liguria:

People use to prepare the “balletti”: chestnuts boiled in water with wild fennel. In the past, grandmothers used to make home-made necklaces to their grandsons with chestnut and a particular kind of apple, the apples “carle” which nowadays are almost impossible to find.

3) Sicily:

It’s usual to buy the “frutta martorana”. It’s a particular kind of almond paste (the almond paste is made of almond flour and sugar) that is modelled with the shape and colour of fruits. They’re tasty and they’re also very beautiful to see.

4) Campania:

Here there’s the habit to eat pomegranate in this day and to buy the “torrone dei morti” (lit. “nougat of the dead”). It’s a soft nougat made of chocolate and filled with candied and dried fruit and almonds. It has a little rectangular shape which remembers the coffins.

5) Puglia:

A typical dish of this day is the “colve”. It is a cake made of boiled soft wheat and mixed with the hot wine, cooked with cinnamon and sugar, and in some cases they fill it with pomegranate, nuts, almond and little pieces of chocolate too.

6) Piemonte:

It’s habit to prepare cookies called “ossa dei morti” (lit. “dead’s bones”). They are little cookies made with almonds, cinnamon and egg white. People used to make it and leave it on the table (that remains set after the dinner, but without knives) to give something to eat to the souls that in this night wander on the heart.

7) Emilia Romagna:

They prepare the “Piada dei morti”, it is a soft thin sweet bread filled with candied orange, nuts, almonds and pine kernels. The particular preparation of this tasty cake is really long, indeed its dough it’s leavened twice.

8) Tuscany:

They use to make the “pan de’ santi” (lit. “Saints’ bread”). It’s a sweet little round bread, it is made in a very simple way: water, flour, nuts and raisins. This bread is typical of Siena and Grosseto, and it could be easily found in the bakery’s.