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St Joseph's Day

Cream-filled zeppole and a meatless table for the poor, kept by Italians on the saint's feast.

St Joseph with the Infant Jesus
Photo: Guido Reni, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

What is eaten for St Joseph's Day

St Joseph's Day is Father's Day in Italy, and it falls in Lent, so the food is meatless. In Sicily, and among Sicilian families in the United States, people build a St Joseph's table. It is an altar laden with breads, fish, vegetables, pasta with sardines and sweets, set up in thanks for answered prayers and then given to the poor. Fava beans are placed on it because they saved Sicilians in a famine. The pastry of the day is the zeppola, fried or baked and filled with custard.

The dishes

ZeppoleCustard-filled pastry topped with a cherry, made for the feast.Pasta con le sardeSicilian pasta with sardines and wild fennel.MaccuThick fava bean soup of Sicily, tied to the feast.

More dishes made for St Joseph's Day

Crema catalanaVegetarian 🇪🇸 SpainCatalan custard dessert with a caramelized sugar crust Sweet or dessert
About this page

Written by the Thali desk with AI assistance. Background: "Saint Joseph's Day" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from family to family and place to place. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.

Photo credits on this page

The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.

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