St. Joseph is a HUGE deal around our house. He is our youngest son's namesake and one of our family's patrons. He is also one of the few saints that still has two feast days on the New Calendar (Universal Roman Calendar of 1969). His first commemoration is a Solemnity on March 19th and the Feast of St. Joseph the worker falls on May 1st.
The Solemnity of St. Joseph usually lands smack dab in the middle of Lent and serves as a little respite in our home. Because it is a solemnity, not only does it make a Lenten Friday a Meat Friday when it falls on that day of the week (can. 1250), but for our Family it means we get to dispense one of our Family Lenten Disciplines and enjoy dessert! All solemnities equal desserts in our house and it has been a sure fire way for our kiddos to make sure we remember when they are.
Of course attending Mass and praying are always the best ways the mark any saint day, but for our beloved St. Joseph I also wanted to share a fun supper tradition from our home that can be used for either of his feasts.
Back when I was in college as a music major I was required to take four semesters of foreign language. Since most of the classical music repertoire, operas etc, is in Italian that is what I chose. Surprising to me, I ended up loving the classes, and especially our professoressa Robin, so much that by the end of my studies all I lacked for a second minor in Italian was a summer of study abroad classes. However I decided to go ahead and get married the graduate instead... Another story for another time but the gist is that it was just sooo expensive.
One thing that I really enjoyed about the upper level Italian classes were that after we had the basics of the language with tenses and conjugations our study focused more and more on the Italian culture. And that is what was most interesting to me.
One Italian cultural events that I found so fascinating, and wanted to recreate some way in our new home, was the autumn tradition of Pasta alla Tavola (pasta to the table). On the last day of the Durum Wheat harvest, the wheat milled into semolina flour to make pasta, the local community would work together to put on a meal near the fields - a celebration in thanksgiving for the completion of a bountiful harvest. No plates or flatware, though some whittled crude utensils from sticks if they liked. Just make shift tables and wine, with pasta and meat cooked outside over an open fire and eaten in little piles with tired hands.
So when St. Joseph found me, I had the perfect way for our family to remember him on either of his feasts. As a carpenter he worked with his hands, so we would have our own little Pasta alla Tavola and eat with ours. Basta! (That'll do!) The best part is that our little ones have so much fun with it and haven't forgotten a St. Joseph day yet!
Our simple - and fairly clean - setup for Pasta alla Tavola is to put down butcher paper or a plastic tablecloth, like with a crawdad boil, and then have little bowls of sauce for dipping the pasta and meatballs. We use Gigli pasta, also called Campanelle in the US, to make San Giuseppe Pasta as it means lilies. Lilies themselves are a symbol of St. Joseph's purity. This quick and easy dish uses toasted breadcrumbs to serve as sawdust and is tossed with butter or olive oil, parmesan cheese, parsley, garlic, salt, and pepper all added to taste.
St. Joseph tables laden with bread and other foods are another tradition we add to at our parish as well as the customary Zeppole or Italian cream puffs either homemade or from the frozen section. We prefer them filled with whipped cream.
You could really make the Alla Tavola tradition work for any home by replacing the pasta with your family's favorite finger foods. It could be chicken and veggie alla tavola, or fajita alla tavola, the possibilities are endless so make it your own!
St. Joseph, Terror of Demons, pray for us!
Pax,
Genie