Pasqua a Serra Sant’Abbondio

29-31 March 2024

We drove to Serra in time to celebrate Easter with the Roman cousins at the old Sabbatini family home. Good Friday marks the beginning of the holiday. Pasquetta (little Easter) on Monday is a national holiday and schools are off for the entire week.

Good Friday Procession

The Good Friday celebration in Serra began with an evening mass followed by a procession with a raised crucifix, a realistic statue of the reclined body of Christ, and a raised statue of Mary. The procession led from the church, the Chiesa di Maria, near the city hall, down the short main street, past the Sabbatini house, and through the main gate, accompanied by worshippers singing hymns.

Saturday Dinner

Dario, Luciana’s son arrived late afternoon, laden with wines and foie gras from France where he works. Adriana prepared steaks over the fire. Two local desert wines, made from sour cherries and prunes, were great with the crescia dulce and biscotti.

Easter Mass

Two masses were held: 10:00 and 11:30 AM.

Easter Pranzo (Lunch)

Adriana prepared a feast of ravioli, coniglio (rabbit), and lamb. Robert served a crescia, an Easter cheese bread, that he ordered at the local bakery. It weighed 1 kilo (1.2 pounds). He asked for a medium size and he has a hard time imagining what a large size would be! Luciana brought a columbo, a dove-shaped sweet bread, from the Rosati Cafe in Rome where Robert goes for breakfast. All very good! We also drank a few bottles of Dario’s French wine.

Crescia a Frontone—A Lesson in Italian Cusine

In Le Marche, as elsewhere in Italy, towns separated by only a few kilometers prepare the same recipe with minor differences, but enough to distinguish the results. Residents fiercely defend their recipe as the best and the only true version. This is the case in how folks from Frontone prepare crescia compared with people from Serra. And Serra and Frontone are only three and a half miles apart!

Crescia is a bread for Pasqua (Easter) made with grated cheese—pecorino and parmigiano. In Frontone, Daniela Braccini, Mark Nolfi’s cousin, explained to us that the traditional recipe does not have pepper. Robert’s Dad, from Serra, loved lots of pepper in his crescia, much to the consternation of Robert’s Mom. In Frontone, a few people use bits of cheese in the crescia, but you are more likely to find this in Serra.

Frontone holds a crescia competition every year that we have followed on Facebook. This year, we attended in person. A good-sized group assembled to sample the sixteen entries, cleansing their palates with salumi, along with beer or wine they bought at the bar. After sampling all of the numbered entries, we voted. Neither of our choices won.