by InTrieste
If you live in Trieste, you’ve no doubt noticed sacks of small, tri-colored, seasonal sweets popping up in bakery windows or even in your local cafe.
These almond-based cookies have white, pink, and brown colors, and symbolize birth, life, and death, respectively.
Flavored with vanilla, rose water, and chocolate, the biscotini are eaten from September to November, but are especially quintessential on November 2nd, the “Day of the Dead” or “All Souls Day.” These morbid morsels have a long history in Trieste, and their origins reach back into Roman times.
The Romans associated fava beans with death, believing that the plants’ deep roots could reach into the underworld and create a bridge of sorts between the living and the dead. As such, fava beans became a customary part of ancient funerals, where they were consumed and tossed over the shoulder in homage to the deceased.
As time went on the elite found this practice to be a bit too low-brow, and the beans were replaced with pastry “beans” that eventually morphed into the sweets we know today.
Thanks to old documents from a pasticceria, we know that Trieste’s variation of this pastry (made from almonds, rather than the pine nuts used in the Venitian version) was served at least as early as the inauguration of the Miramare Castle in the mid-1800s.
The fave dei morti have been a traditional autumn treat for at least 6 generations of Triestini on All Souls Day and even if it is no longer believed that they can connect us to the dead, the “beans” are a nice reminder of the “roots” we all have in the ancestors who lived before us. As you can see around town, the fave dei morti continue to be in high demand and are enjoyed by many even today.
