Catalan Institute of America

Celebrating and promoting Catalan language and culture in the United States.

La Castanyada : A Catalan Tradition
The Catalan tradition of “La Castanyada,” or chestnut festival, on the eve of All Saints’ Day represents, to my mind, some of the best qualities of a true Catalan celebration: a deep respect for the wannth of friendship, food, and togetherness, just as summer is truly over and winter is on its way. It is a quiet festival in comparison to other Catalan pursuits such as the firecracker-spitting devils and dragons of summer holidays Of the costumed Carnival parades in the week before Lent, but though reserved, it is still often relished, if only for a chance to relax with friends and enjoy traditional harvest treats: roast chestnuts, yams, sweet moscatel wine, and marzipan-like delicacies caned “panellets.”

Fall is a time when even the streets of a large metropolis like Barcelona were once full of chestnut vendors, roasting the fall staple over open flres and serving them in cones of old newspaper for a couple hundred pesetas. The rieh aroma and makeshift nature of these stalls brought much the same sense of surprise as do the candied almond sellers on the bustling sidewalks of New York today. In fact, sources on the Internet still speak fondly of “la castanyera,” or chestnut vendor, dressed in a long woolen skirt with a long, white scarf tied tightly to her waist and head, roasting chestnuts in a clay funnel called a “copa.”

But other, more superstitious rituals, have been part of All Saints as well. Falling forty days after the fall equinox, All Saints has always marked the time to celebrate the changing seasons, the time when “Nature becomes lethargic, near dead, and humans know shortages, darkness, and cold.” From the ancient Greeks, Mediterranean countries inherited the belief that the first two days of November was when the ghosts of the dead would return to earth to speak again to their beloved. Thus, even in Catalonia, All Saints has also been a time to visit the cemetery, leave flowers at the tombs, and welcome the spirits home.

These days it’s the making of “panellets” that is more likely to capture the attention of Catalan children. Online you can find Ivan and Francese’s passionate explanation of how to make the sweets, translated at their grade school as “Halloween Catalan Cakes.”

Nonetheless, Pla begins his essay “Days of Chestnuts: Some Memories” with a confession: he’s not a huge fan of chestnuts. Still, he values his country’s custom for, when all is said and done: “Now is the time to celebrate the castanyada. We take time to note such familiar festivals on the calendar not only for their importance but for what we eat and drink celebrating them. Marzipan is excessively sweet and thick. Panellets, even those made with pine nuts, are a little oily. Chestnuts cling to and clog up one’s tongue. Sweet wine is heavy. But things of substance are now what one’s inner life demands, to balance out the summer.”

(From a text by Hillary Gardner)