LA CASTANYADAA chestnut festival

CONTENTS

• Introduction• When• Origins• Nowadays• Traditions• Rituals• Proverbs• Songs

INTRODUCTIONThe Castanyada is a popular Catalan festival, celebrated on 31th October. It consists of a meal of chesnuts, panallets, sweet potatoes and preserved fruits, typically with moscatell (sweat wine) to drink.

The festival is usually depicted with the figure of a castanyera: an old lady, dressed in peasant's clothing and wearing a headscarf, sat behind a table, roasting chestnuts for street sale.

WHEN

ORIGINS Like Halloween, its origins are in an

ancient ritual festival of the dead.

It seems that the tradition of eating these foods comes from the fact that during All Saints’ night, the night before All Souls’ Day in the Christian tradition, bell ringers would ring bells in commemoration of the dead into the early morning. Friends and relatives would help with this task, and everyone would eat these foods for sustenance.

NOWADAYSIn recent years, the Castanyada has become a revetlla of All Saints and is celebrated in the home and community. It is the first of the four main school festivals, alongside Christmas, Carnival and St. Geroge’s Day, without reference to ritual or commemoration of the dead.

TRADITIONS• 1st of November we eat a sweet thing

called panellets (no translation available, in literal English "little breadies"). They are in fact marzipan balls coated with pine kernels or smashed almonds. 

• Around the time of this celebration, it is common for street vendors to sell hot toasted chestnuts wrapped in newspaper. In many places, confectioners often organise raffles of chestnuts and preserved fruit.

RITUALS Some versions of the story state that the Castanyada

originates at the end of the 18th century and comes from the old funeral meals, where other foods, such as vegetables and dried fruit were not served.

The meal had the symbolic significance of a communion with the souls of the departed: while the chestnuts were roasting, prayers would be said for the person who had just died

PROVERBS• Any de bolets, any de castanyes: Year with mushrooms,

year with chestnuts.• Castanya torrada i calenta escalfa les mans...i el ventre!:

Roasted and hot chestnut warms your hands ... and your tummy!

• De castanyes, qui més en pela més en menja: Chestnuts, the more you peel the more you eat.

SONGSLA CASTANYERA (THE CHESTNUT SELLER)

Quan ve el temps de menjar castanyes, (When it’s time to eat chestnuts)

la castanyera, la castanyera (the chestnut seller, the chestnut seller)

Ven castanyes de la muntanya (she sells some chestnuts in the countryside)

A la plaça de la ciutat (and in the city square)

La camisa li va petita (her shirt is too small)

La faldilla li fa campana (her skirt is too big)

Les sabates li fan cloc-cloc (her shoes sounds like cloc-cloc)

I el ballar sempre gira així (and when she daces she turns like this)

MARRAMEU

Marrameu torra castanyes,

a la voreta del foc;

ja n’hi peta una als morros,

ja tenim marrameu mort.

Pica ben fort, pica ben fort,

que piques fusta,

pica ben fort.

2nd ESO Students, Group D