St. Joseph’s Day was last week - and if you grew up in a Sicilian/Sicilian-American household, you know the importance of celebrating St. Joseph’s Day.
You probably also associate the feast day with pastries. Yes?
Did you also have the dinner, and not just the pastries?
We do. We use perciatelli macaroni (thicker than spaghetti and hollow on the inside of the tube), and top it with a sauce. Some simply use the sardines, fennel, and raisins, but we add it to the basic marinara sauce, ladle it over the macaroni, and top with grated cheese (for me it’s always parmigiano reggiano) and “sawdust” - remember, St. Joseph was a carpenter. Anyway, the sawdust is sauteed bread crumbs. And it’s delicious.
The pastries? I’ve made sfingi at home, which eventually I’ll write about, but on the holiday we usually buy them from the Italian bakery - the pastries, some with cannoli filling and some with custard filling. Amazingly good.
And bonus: if you can find a cool loaf of Italian bread in the bakery or make it at home - in the shape of the J, or a fish, or a cross, or the like - it’s fun. This year we had one in the shape of a fish.
Also - pair with Italian red wines - basic Sangiovese wines from Tuscany, Nero d’Avola from Sicily, you know the drill.
