Cappuccino and a brioche? Not in Abruzzo on Easter morning. The Abruzzese kick off the holiday with a sumptuous breakfast followed by a bountiful, satiating lunch.
The Abruzzo Easter breakfast tradition
This breakfast tradition is so ingrained in the local culture that it has its own name: the sdiuno (sdijune in dialect). It's derived from a Spanish term that indicates the end of Good Friday and Holy Saturday, two days by which locals traditionally fasted, abstaining from food. The Abruzzo Easter breakfast breaks the two-day fast, so it takes place at around 8:00 a.m., and not mid-morning like the rest of Central Italy.
What’s for breakfast?
The Easter breakfast is a substantial meal with both sweet and savory dishes: hard-boiled eggs, or a local salami called cicolana, and the coratella, an omelette with mint. Finally, there’s the Easter pizza, which is more of a dessert with its large brioche-like dough flavored with star anise, raisins and decorated with colored sugars. This accompanies a variety of meat and cheeses. Red wine and chocolate eggs complete the festivities as though a lavish lunch wasn't planned for just a few hours.
Unmissable dishes: mazzarelle and fiadoni
Abruzzese Easter wouldn't be complete without two dishes. The mazzarelle comprise rolls of coratella, or lamb entrails, wrapped in endive leaves, tied with more innards, and baked in the oven with tomato.
Fiadoni (pictured above), are significantly less carnivorous–it's a form of ravioloni is stuffed with cheese and baked in the oven. Each family has its own variation, but the basic dough is prepared with flour, eggs, oil, and wine. The filling, instead, is made with eggs and hard cheese. In L'Aquila, the filling is also flavored with saffron, while other variations also include sausage or salami. The fiadoni are marked by a particular cut in the dough that allows the cheese to seep out and form an irresistible crust.