In Italy Easter is one of the most important celebrations. The main Easter traditions in Italy are generally: the mass (for believers), eggs and colomba, a traditional Italian cake.
Today I’d like to talk about one of the many special Easter traditions that takes place in Italy: the egg festival.
The egg festival
The egg festival – Sagra e Palio dell’uovo – is one of the most peculiar Easter traditions there are in Italy. This festival takes place every year in the small town of Tredozio, in Emilia-Romagna.
This festival involves a lot of activities such as a Sfogline competition, an egg eaten competition, a cheek-to-cheek egg competition, a haystack competition, a target shooting competition, the tug of war, and an egg battle.
The egg festival happens during two days Easter and Easter Monday. On Easter the competitions involve women only, while on Easter Monday the competitions involve males only.
In the egg festival the four town districts – Borgo, dressed in red, Casone, dressed in blue, Nuovo, dressed in white, and Piazza, dressed in green – compete to win the silver egg.
In the sfogline competition participate some sfogline/i. Sfogline are people who can make sfoglia, a typical Italian homemade type of pasta. Making homemade sfoglia isn’t that easy, and the most difficult part is definitely rolling the dough with a rolling pin so as to create a very thin sheet of pasta. The sfogline competition is precisely about this, the competitors have to roll a 700g dough as thin as possible in 8 minutes.
The egg eaten competition takes place at the same time as the sfogline competition. The participants have to eat the higher number of boiled eggs in 3 minutes.
The cheek-to-cheek egg competition is played by women only. The competition is played in couples. Every couple has to hold an egg between their cheeks and bring it to destination without dropping it.
The haystack competition requires the 4 districts to search for hard-boiled eggs in a haystack and then throw them to a team mate on the other side of the river. The winner is, of course, the team who finds the major number of eggs.
In the target shooting competition, participants have to throw an egg to hit a target, while a member of another team tries to stop the egg with a sort of wooden racket before it can hit the target.
The tug of war is the only competition that doesn’t involve eggs. Two teams compete in a test of strength, pulling on opposite ends of a rope. The teams place themselves on the opposite sides of the river. The winner is the team that can bring the opposite team on their side of the river.
Finally, the egg battle is what the name itself suggests, a battle with eggs. Two teams place themselves on opposite sides of a field and start to throw eggs at each other. The winner is the team that can hit all the players of the opposite team.
Of course, the egg festival involves also parades, food stands with typical egg-based products, music and additional activities.
Do you have similar Easter traditions in your country?
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Credits
Original image by Daria-Yakovleva
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