An Archaic Family of Holiday Sweets

One old family of European dishes illustrates the role of symbolism in celebratory foods and highlights the development of pastiera, an elaborate and particularly rich dish that arose out of an older, very humble tradition.

In the Mediterranean world, preparations with whole grains developed symbolic religious significance in remote antiquity. In ancient Greece, they formed part of the ritual celebration of native divinities and were later grafted onto Christian observance, with the whole grains symbolizing the dual notion of death and resurrection. Various savory whole-grain dishes (generally combined with one or more legumes) persist to this day as celebratory foods in association with events of the Greek Orthodox calendar. The most notable is kolyva, a dish of boiled whole-wheat berries that, in numerous variations, is sweetened with honey or powdered sugar and fortified with crushed nuts, sesame seeds, and dried fruit. This dish is famously associated with funeral commemorations but is also consumed on various saints’ days, All Souls’ Day, and the first Saturday of Lent.