Easter in Sicily: between rituals and traditions
The feast of Easter is a popular event in Sicily where, alongside the renewal of the rites of Christian faith, people take the opportunity to enjoy a moment of conviviality and good food. Let’s find out together the upcoming events amidst traditions, celebrations and restrictions due to the pandemic.
What are the most famous Easter traditions?
Easter is one of the festivals of Christian worship to which both the Sicily both Sicilians are very close. Demonstrating this are the numerous events that accompany the entire holy week. In the various provinces there are processions ranging from the most famous to the lesser known, experienced equally deeply and attracting visitors from all parts of Italy. A Trapani has now become famous the procession of the Sicilian mysteries, an event that originated in Spain and is now known beyond the borders of Sicily. The reconstruction of the via crucis, consisting of as many as twenty sacred groups, begins on Good Friday and lasts for more than twenty-four hours with a break on the Saturday before Easter. Among the most beautiful and evocative rites we find “U Ballu di li Diavuli di Prizzi”, a spectacular festival that has made this small town in the province of Palermo very popular. The event begins in the early afternoon of Easter Sunday and sees the figure of death, dressed in a yellow jumpsuit and a skull mask, roaming the streets accompanied by devils, obviously in red jumpsuits. All accompanied by singing, dancing and jokes. Also worth mentioning is the Byzantine Easter
by Piana degli Albanesi, where Albania’s cultural, linguistic and religious traditions have been preserved for more than five hundred years. La procession of the hooded of Enna is staged instead on Good Friday, when some three thousand confreres parade in a funeral rite of accompanying the fercules of Christ and the Madonna to the sound of folk songs and funeral marches.
Easter and food: what do you eat?
Easter in Sicily is also and above all celebrated at the table. The telling of traditions are inevitably linked to Holy Week and Easter Sunday. Every city has its own workhorse that is a must-have on every table. During the evening of Good Friday in Agusta we eat squid ink pasta (a reminder of the mourning for the death of Christ).
Sunday lunch cannot but start instead with an appetizer of cunzate olives, i.e., olives mashed with celery, carrot, garlic and chili pepper. Each province then has its own specialty: a Messina you eat
“u scuscieddu” , which is a soup of French origin prepared with meat or chicken broth, minced level meat, cottage cheese and eggs. In the agrigentine prepares the Easter tegame of Aragona, an elaborate dish of rigatoni, tuma, pecorino cheese and eggs.The Sicilian Easter menu cannot miss lamb in gravy with potatoes or the roast kid Accompanied by the sweet and sour onions. The must-have of the Sicilian tradition is then the desserts: from the queen of the tables, namely the cassata, to that typical of this period such as the
cuddura cull’ova, a circular lemon cake in which a shell egg is placed in the center that girls traditionally gave to their boyfriends. To finish the famous pistachio lamb, made from marzipan and filled, of course, with pistachios.
Covid, Easter and Easter Monday in Sicily: rules to observe
What is coming will be an “almost” normal Easter for Italians. If you are planning a few days of relaxation and fun in Sicily, let us remind you what can be done and some basic rules. After two years and on the occasion of Easter, masses and religious processions return to Sicily. In all municipalities, however, the choice of parish priests remains precaution and common sense. Due to an increase in some cases of covid infection
a Modica e Scicli Instead, there will be no traditional processions. Although since the April 1 have dropped some restrictions, a mask is still mandatory indoors. Stop the green pass Strengthened to sit at bars and restaurants. Instead, a full green certificate of the three doses will be needed for nightclubs, cinemas and theaters.
Davide Donnarumma
Credits top photo: I love Sicily