Bones of the Dead or Uosse de Mort /fave dolci /Beans of the Dead or Fave Livornesi

These pastries are made for the commemoration of the dead, and take the place of beans from the garden, which are in this case boiled with a ham bone. The custom is rooted in antiquity, as the fava bean was offered to the Fates, to Pluto, and to Persephone, and was used in superstitious rituals. The ancient Egyptians didn't eat fava beans, nor would they sow them or touch them with their hands, while their priests didn't dare look at them because they considered them to be cursed. Fava beans, and especially the black variety, were used as funerary offerings because the ancients believed the beans contained souls of the dead and were shaped like the doors of hell.

In the Lemuralia, the Romans spat black fava beans while beating a copper vase to drive the evil spirits, the Lemuri, and the Gods of the Underworld from their homes.
Festus says there's an unholy symbol hidden in the flowers of the fava bean, and the custom of offering fava beans to the dead is one of the reasons, supposedly, that led Pythagoras to order his disciples to avoid them. Another was to keep them from becoming entangled in affairs of state, since fava beans were used to cast ballots in elections.

Translated from The Art of Eating Well by Pellegrino Artusi, courtesy Kyle Phillips of About.com

Uosse de Mort o Finocchietti

Thanks to Rue's Kitchen for this recipe...

I'm not sure what the exact translation is, (I know 'fennochi' is 'fennel', so I'm guessing 'little fennel' somethingorother) but this is a food made for the Day of the Dead in Italy (Nov 1).  This particular version comes from southern Italy, a town named Basilicata.  It uses lard, which in my experience can leave pastries tasting pretty gamey.  There's quite a bit of flavoring, so maybe it would be OK - but if you don't mind being non-traditional I would use soft, room temperature butter instead of melted lard.

10 cups (1 k) flour
2/3 cups (125 g) sugar
4 ounces (100 g) anise
Fennel seeds to taste
3 ounces (80 g) rendered lard
A pinch of salt

Method:

Warm the lard to melt it. Make a mound of the flour on your work surface and work the other ingredients into it, kneading well to obtain a firm dough. Roll the dough out into snakes between your palms, and shape them into figure 8s, sticks, or circles. Put them on a lightly greased, floured cookie sheet, and bake them until golden brown in a 375 F (185 C) oven.

 

thanks to About.com: Italian Cuisine for these two recipes, and for the historical info above.

 

Here's a version from Venice that uses polenta (corn meal mush)

Start out with 2 quarts of water at a brisk boil and a pound of corn meal. Slowly sift in the corn meal, stirring all the while, and stop adding it when the polenta reaches the consistency of very soft mashed potatoes -- in this case you don't want a firm polenta.

Cook it, stirring energetically (the full cooking time will probably not be necessary here), and once it is done let it rest in the pot for a couple of hours.

Whip it up again, seasoning it with salt and a good pinch of pepper, work a hand full of wheat flour into it to give it consistency, and remove the dough from the pot. Make it into cookies, giving them a shape known as pane trandoto, loaves that are spindle-shaped with wider middles and pinched ends. Bake the cookies on a lightly floured baking tin until the skins harden with a fine network of cracks. My Italian recipe doesn't give a temperature; I'd figure 360 F (180 C) and keep an eye on them.

These are the traditional Day of the Dead sweets in Verona. Around Treviso the bones of the dead are instead made from risen bread dough, to which some butter and oil are added, together with sugar and anise seed; sometimes honey is used too. The dough is shaped into 4-6 inch-long sticks that broaden bonily at the extremities, baked in a moderate (360 F, 180 C) oven for 10-15 minutes, and then baked a second time when cool. At this point they will keep quite well.

 

Livorno's Fava Beans or Bones of the Dead -- Fave Livornesi o Ossa di Morto

To me, this one sounds like the tastiest proposition of the three recipes.  I've made Italian almond cookies before, and they're delicious.  Like most Italian cookies, they aren't soft or chewy by a long sight - they are hard as stones, which necessitates dunking.

There are many versions of the Bones of the Dead, cookies Italians make for the Day of the Dead, November 2. The name, fave or ossa, depends upon how one chooses to shape the cookies -- like beans or like bones.

Begin by peeling the skins off a pound plus 2 ounces (1/2 k) of almonds, after blanching them in briskly boiling water. Once they're skinned pat them dry and toast them lightly in a pot. Next, grind them up, taking care lest they shed their oil (use a blender, grinding in quick bursts, if you prefer; do NOT liquefy them).

Combine the almonds with 1 1/2 cups (300 g) of sugar and 3, or even four lightly beaten egg whites, then work in a walnut-sized chunk of unsalted butter, grated orange zest to taste (I'd figure the grated zest of half a medium-sized orange), a few drops of vanilla extract, and about 3 cups (300 g) flour. Kneed until you have an evenly mixed, not overly stiff dough.

Dust your hands with flour lest the dough stick to them and roll chunks of it out between your palms to obtain so many half-inch thick snakes. Cut the snakes into small pieces and flatten them with your fingers to shape them into fava beans.

Lightly beat a couple of the yolks and brush the beans with yolk, then put them on a greased and floured cookie sheet and bake them in a moderate (350F, 175 C) oven for about 20 minutes.

In addition to vanilla, some cooks use ground coriander and powdered cinnamon in the dough; figure at least 2 teaspoons for the volumes given. To make bones, shape the dough into somewhat larger balls or cylinders, and omit the egg yolk. As a final variation, some like to use whole coriander seeds.

These are rather like cherries, and you may find yourself eating "just one more." They go quite well with Aleatico or Moscato, both of which are sweet dessert wines.

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