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Pan di San Giuseppe
Decorative Bread
Appears in
By Antonio Carluccio and Priscilla Carluccio
Published 1997
This bread, skilfully modelled into a variety of shapes and symbols, is used to decorate altars before being offered to the Holy Family and given to friends as a good omen on San Giuseppe’s day. The bread is a reminder of the legend of the saint, who is celebrated annually with a special meal, la cena di San Giuseppe (the supper of St Joseph) in the village of Salemi, a small village built on top of a high hill near Trapani in Sicily.
The story that inspires this celebration is that of a fisherman and his wife who lived in the village. One day, as the fisherman went off on a fishing trip, his wife promised that should he survive his next fishing trip she would invite the entire village to dinner. However, the fisherman and his wife were so poor that when he suddenly returned, all she had to feed to her guests was flour and water, which she made into bread in the shape of the food she would have dearly loved to have given and of Christian symbols.