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Il tema del nostro appuntamento di Marzo con l’Italian Table Talk, il progetto sulla cucina italiana che condivido con le amiche Giulia, Valeria ed Emiko, è (prevedibilmente!) la Pasqua.

Mi sento un po’ impreparata su questo tema, perchè a casa mia non si celebra la Pasqua cristiana, bensì ovviamente quella ebraica; tuttavia, ho scovato per voi una tradizione per così dire “trasversale”, tipica della Pasqua, che accomuna cattolici, ortodossi ed ebrei, e spero vi piacerà.

Alla fine della Pasqua ebraica, Pesach, gli ebrei del Nord Africa, oggi sparsi in molti luoghi inclusa l’Italia, celebrano una festa molto particolare chiamata mimuna: in questa occasione si festeggia il fatto di poter finalmente consumare il pane, ma anche l’arrivo della primavera.
L’origine della parola mimuna è molto incerta: sembra che il vocabolo derivi dalla parola che in ebraico significa fede e in arabo felicità, ma c’è anche chi pensa che l’origine del vocabolo sia da ricercarsi nel nome di Maimon, il padre di uno dei più celebri filosofi dell’ebraismo, Rambam.

La festa comincia dopo il tramonto dell’ultimo giorno di Pesach.
In molte comunità, gli ebrei ricevevano dai loro vicini – specialmente mussulmani – cesti di farina, frano e lievito per preparare il pane alla fine di Pesach, quando gli ebrei non disponevano degli ingredienti necessari a causa del divieto festivo.
Gli ebrei, in cambio, aprivano le loro case ai visitatori, preparando tavole piene di dolci, torte e altri prodotti di significato simbolico.

La festa della mimuna iniziava con l’impasto del pane: tutta la famiglia presenziava a questa cerimonia, in trepidante attesa del pane fresco, molto desiderato dopo una settimana di matzà.
Da dove viene la mia famiglia, in Libia, gli ebrei preparavano un pane che ha lo stesso nome della festa, mimuna: questa è la ricetta che vi racconterò oggi.
Si tratta di un pane molto speciale e festivo che ha al suo interno un uovo, oggetto portafortuna, simbolo del cerchio della vita.
Le donne usavano preparare un pane di questo tipo per ogni membro della famiglia, per dare a ciascuno una speciale benedizione: era infatti opinione condivisa che la notte della mimuna i cieli si aprissero ad accogliere le preghiere degli uomini.

In Italia, a Pasqua, in molte parti del paese e specialmente al Sud, si preparano pani come la mimuna.
In passato, durante il periodo della Quaresima, si osservava una severa moderazione alimentare, che escludeva il consumo di carne, uova e formaggi, ma con l’arrivo della settimana santa le privazioni terminavano e le uova tornavano ad essere protagoniste nella tavola pasquale.
In Sicilia ad esempio, dove mi trovo proprio ora, si prepara un pane chiamato coddura, di derivazione probabilmente ortodossa, di forma circolare, con incorporato un numero variabile di uova sode.
Pani come questi sono molto comuni in tutti i paesi del Mediterraneo: se ne trovano di simili in Puglia, Calabria, Campagna, ma ad esempio anche in Grecia, dove si consuma per Pasqua un pane con le uova chiamato tsoureki.

Le uova ricorrono in molte ricette della stagione di Pasqua, perchè nel cristianesimo rappresentano la tomba vuota di Gesù, mentre in altre religioni – anche più antiche – sono simbolo di fertilità e rinascita.

C’è qualche ricetta, nelle tradizioni della vostra famiglia, che preveda questa unione simbolica di pane e uova? Sarei felicissima di leggerne qualcuna nei commenti.

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The chosen theme for this month’s episode of Italian Table Talk, the lovely project about Italian food and traditions which I proudly share with my friends Giulia, Valeria and Emiko, is Easter, a topics I’m not very familiar with since in my family, at this time of the year, we don’t celebrate Easter, but Passover instead.
However, after a bit of research, I have discovered a type of food that crosses cultural and religious borders and is similarly prepared between Jews, Catholics and Orthodoxes alike: Easter bread with eggs.

Mimuna is a traditional feast held the day after Passover among North African Jews, both in Italy and abroad: it marks the start of spring and the return to eating chametz (leavened bread and bread by-products) which is forbidden throughout the week of Passover.
The origin and meaning of the word mimuna is not certain. The word derives from the Hebrew word for faith, and means happiness in Arabic, but some believe that the source of the name is Maimon, the father of the Jewish scholar and philosopher Rambam, and that mimuna day marks the date of his death.

The celebration begins after nightfall on the last day of Passover. In many communities, non-Jewish neighbours (especially Muslims in Africa) would give baskets of flour, wheat and yeast to the Jews, and the gift of yeast made it possible for the Jews to prepare dough for bread right after Passover.
Jews, in return, would throw open their homes to visitors, after setting out a lavish spread of traditional holiday cakes and sweetmeats, with various symbols of luck and fertility.

The mimuna festivities basically began with the ceremony of kneading the dough, and all the members of the family were present for the ceremony; Jews had not eaten bread for over a week, thus there was a great deal of anticipation for the new bread, after all those days of matzot.
Where my family comes from, on mimuna day, people would bake a bread that goes by the same name of the holiday: that’s the recipe we’re learning today.
It’s a festive bread with eggs in it, because eggs symbolize the circle of life and are supposed to bring good luck.
Women would bake a bread for each member of the family, to give him or her a special blessing: in fact, they believed that during the mimuna night the heavens are open to our prayers.

In Italy, on Easter, breads similar to mimuna are baked in different parts of the country, especially in the South.
During the period right before Easter, Quaresima or Lent, many of the faithful commit to fasting or giving up certain types of luxuries as a form of penitence: most Christians would stop eating meat, cheese, and especially eggs, in order to purify for Easter.
In ancient times, eggs were always forbidden during Lent as well as on other traditional fast days in Western Christianity, and this tradition still continues today among the Eastern Christian Churches.
That’s the reason why after Lent people would bake rich, often sweet breads specifically with eggs in them. In Sicily, where I’m staying right now, for instance, the typical Easter bread is cuddura: a sweet bread shaped like a ring, just like mimuna, with hard boiled eggs in it.
These types of bread are very common in all the countries around the Mediterrean: you can find something similar in Puglia, Calabria, Campagna, but if you think of it, the Greek tsoureki, also, is essentially the same thing.
Eggs are common pretty everywhere during the season of Eastertide: in Christianity, they symbolize the empty tomb of Jesus, but they were a traditional symbol of fertility and rebirth even pre-dating Christian traditions.

Is there any Easter recipe from your background that features bread and eggs?
I’d love to read your stories in the comments!

For three medium sized breads (the size of a hand approx.) you’ll need

• 1 kg cake flour
• 50 g fresh yeast/lievito fresco
• 1 + 1/2 glasses of sugar(some might prefer to omit it)
• 1 glass of olive or seeds oil
• 500 ml water, more or less
• 1 tsp of fennel seeds
• 1 tsp of onion seeds or black cumin
• 2 tbs of raisins (depends on the family traditions, some don’t use it)
• 1 tsp of salt

Just for your reference, by glass I mean a normal white disposable plastic glass, that equals 200 ml.
You can see the same recipe filmed by my uncle Hamos on YouTube.

Pile the flour in a bowl or on to a clean surface and make a large well in the centre. Pour half your water into the well, then add your yeast, sugar, salt, seeds and stir with a fork.
Slowly, but confidently, bring in the flour from the inside of the well until you get a crumbly, sticky consistency then add the remaining water (certain flours need a little more or less water, so feel free to adjust) and continue to mix.
Flour your hands and pat and push the dough together with all the remaining flour.
With a bit of elbow grease, simply push, fold, slap and roll the dough around, over and over, for 4 or 5 minutes until you have a silky and elastic dough.
Flour the top of your dough. Put it in a bowl, cover with cling film, and allow it to prove for about half an hour until doubled in size – ideally in a warm, moist, draught-free place.
In the meantime, boil your eggs: you want them hard-boiled, so they won’t crack or “misbehave” in the oven.
Once the dough has doubled in size, knock the air out for 30 seconds by bashing it and squashing it.
You can now shape the dough into a ring, place on egg inside each dough ring, then leave it to prove for a second time for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Very gently place your breads on to a baking tray covered in parchment paper and into the preheated oven.
Bake the breads for some 20/30 minutes or until cooked and light. You can tell if the bread is cooked by tapping its bottom – if it sounds hollow it’s done, if it doesn’t then pop it back in for a little longer.
Once cooked, place the bread on a rack and allow it to cool for at least 30 minutes.

Check out more interesting stories and recipes about Italian Easter visiting my fellow Italian Table Talk bloggers, Giulia, Valeria and Emiko, and join the conversation with the hashtag #ITableTalk on Twitter.

Preparata e annotata da Benedetta Jasmine Guetta
Cucina ebraica, Pane e cose lievitate, Pesach :: cucina ebraica, parve, ricette tripoline, semi di cipolla, semi di finocchio, uova