Ever since I can remember, my extended family has always celebrated St. Joseph's day in March every year. When I was little, my family would rent out a dining hall area with an extremely large kitchen. In the more recent years since the passing of some of my older relatives, we now just get together with a group of roughly 50 people at my uncle Joe's house.
During this Sicilian holiday, we remember St. Joseph, the carpenter with a lavish feast. We always started every St. Joseph's Day dinner with lighting candles and by toasting. During the toast a prayer was said and at the end of the prayer, the phrase "Viva San Giuseppe" meaning "Happy St. Joseph's Day!" in Italian. We always have the following foods:
- Pasta, thick spaghetti with 2 different types of sauces- regular tomato sauce and tomato sauce with sardines. (I wish the sardines weren't present)
- Hard Boiled eggs
- plenty of bread to share
- Bread crumbs to represent St. Joseph's saw dust of being a carpenter
- Cheese, lots and lots of cheese
- Breaded cauliflower
- pastrami, salami, and other various meats
- sauteed onions and peppers
- Fried fish
- Egg omelets
- Different grilled vegetables
For dessert (my favorite part)
- Cannolis
- Pizzelles
- Double chocolate ricotta cake
- sphinges
- sfogliatelle pastries
- eclaires
- and other desserts topped with honey
This huge feast takes hours to eat but it is definitely worth it. Theres also never a dull moment in my family during this dinner especially when the adults get a little tipsy on the Italian home made wine. All in all, I love this holiday because it brings people together by food and its always the time of the year when I get to see all of my extended family and just enjoy laughs with them. Honestly, there never goes a year when I don't look forward to this holiday!
Silvana, you will have to tell the rest of us 1) date of the Feast of Saint Joseph, 2) what sphinges are, and 3) how you and your family manage to stagger away from the table. I love the hard-boiled eggs in this menu. Deviled eggs were an important feature of many of my family's traditional feasts.
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