While ghosts and carved pumpkins dominate somewhere else in the world, on October 31st/ November 1st Catalonia, and especially Barcelona, celebrates one of the region’s most characteristic All Saints’ Day traditions: “la Castanyada”. The chestnut – fall’s classic symbol – plays the leading role in this festival and Catalonia enjoys its most traditional and seasonal dishes: roasted chestnuts, sweet potatoes, sweet (aged) wine and panellets , which are pictured below.
Panellets (Catalan for little breads , just wonderful for the waistline) are sweets a bit smaller than a golf ball and made out of ground almonds , sugar, and eggs. Pictured topping: pine nuts, which can be substituted for chopped almonds, shredded chocolate, shredded coconut, there are no limits set! They are supposedly a leftover from the days when offerings were placed in the graves with the dead, according to the net.
Globalization has brought a Halloween touch to Spain, but it is mostly limited to costume parties in clubs for young adults. If you happen to be in Barcelona, here is one party! I myself don't celebrate Halloween and I actually went trick-or-treating only once in my life my senior year in an American high school .. my friends decided that I had been deprived but I think they just found the perfect excuse to go out trick-or-treating again at age 17-18!
Last but not least, a low-cal Halloween treat :
That's a nice feast ! Here in Belgium there are stands all over selling roasted chestnuts, tastes very good !
ReplyDeleteOf course I had to try the skeleton game, it's funny ! I am really surprised everyday what all had been invented for Halloween ! This morning for the party tomorrow I found a women urinal (!!) and an alien embryo ! Crazy !!
WOW that is cool... I know that Nov 2nd is more than just my daughter's bday but it is also Day of the dead and 31st of Oct is Halloween of for us Wiccans Samhain
ReplyDeletewaves Michelle sent me
Sounds and looks AWESOME!!!! Send me some!
ReplyDeleteGreat blog! Congrats!!
Hello, Michele sent me.
I'll take two panellets, please! They look delicious.
ReplyDeleteAh! Chestnuts roasting on an open fire... Mmmmm! Those panellets look scrumptious! I could have... a dozen or so! See? This is all just one more reason I should come to Spain! No Halloween! (I guess I should go write a post about how WE celebrate... or used to... but I just don't wanna...)
ReplyDeleteHalloween isn't traditionally celebrated much here either, but thanks to globalisation, trick or treating is becoming popular over here. However, it isn't alwasy well supervised and Isn't always nice little kids. The police are invariably very busy on Halloween.
ReplyDeleteI like the look of those little breads :) It's a good job I'm looking at the pics while I am eating my lunch! LOL!
I don't care for chestnuts, but those panellets look and sound wonderful!
ReplyDeleteThat food looks delicious!
ReplyDeleteDH & I both dress up for Halloween. Some of my daughter's friends think we're a bit weird...but what other day can you dress up and be goofy? Besides we don't care what others think of us. hee hee
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely tradition, Mar!!!Now I become very hungry just watching these beautiful photos! I adore see chesnuts rosting!!! and all the little cakes! Miam! You should bring a little of all that with you at the VIP party by Dracula!
ReplyDeleteThe whole thing sounds delicious. For some reason I associate chestnuts with Christmas, even though I also remember going into the woods to collect them, and then roasting them over the fire. Nobody apart from me really liked them, but it was great fun!
ReplyDeleteThat's really interesting about the All Saints' traditions there! I'm not a huge chestnut fan but it still sounds really good!
ReplyDeleteoh, who cares about the waistline... hehe... i could sweat for 2 hours just to taste a panellet! :)
ReplyDelete"castanha assada" is also quite the tradition in portugal! i miss home at times like these.
Oh My My My Mar..Those look absolutely Fantastical! Like, YUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMY!
ReplyDeleteI don't think I could resist those and because they are small, I can see how one would pop three or four, or more, in one's mouth...LOL!