Feast of the Immaculate Conception in Calabria, amid celebrations and typical sweets

Longing for flickering lights, the warmth of home, presents to unwrap. Can you smell this Christmas scent in the air too? In Calabria, 8 December opens the door to festivities with an atmosphere of joy and sharing, the perfect synthesis of the encounter between the sacred and the profane.

It is the feast of the Immaculate Conception, which reminds Christians of the conception of the Virgin Mary without original sin, and this is why people from one part of the region to the other are divided between rites and processions. 8 December, then, is the day on which all diets are banned. Tradition dictates a guilt-free immersion in local gastronomy, and there is no home without frying cullurielli (potato and flour doughnuts) and improvising toasts in front of trays overflowing with typical sweets.

There will be time to make up for the excesses, after all, Christmas is still a long way off. Or isn't it?

It is an opportunity to get to know an authentic Calabria where faith and tradition are the lifeblood of the feast. 8 December is a particularly important day in Catanzaro, Rende and Diamante, where Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception is venerated as patron saint, but her devotion is a constant from the Pollino to the Strait and blends with local stories of prayer and protection.

In Nicotera Marina, the evocative sea procession is held in her honour, in which the statue of the Virgin, surrounded by a crowd of believers, is carried onto the shore. In Mormanno, close to the Pollino National Park, the feast of the Immaculate Conception coincides with another important moment of sociality and community life, the feast of the ‘Perciavutti’, or the opening of the barrels in which the new wine is pickedle, a special occasion to visit this beautiful village, toasting with a goblet of red.

That it is 8 December you can tell by the smell of fried food that pervades every street, every pavement, every house. 

In Calabria, on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, the traditional soft doughnuts - called cullurielli, grispelle or zippuli depending on the area of the region - are kneaded. They have the unique flavour of a simple food (the ingredients are potatoes, flour and yeast) but rich in history. The 8 December aperitif is an unmissable appointment, strictly in the street food version: a steaming doughnut and a glass of wine. 

And you can't fail to taste it, in its savoury version - classic or in the variant without a hole filled with anchovies or rosamarin - or in the mouth-watering sweet version, sunk in grains of sugar. But if the culluriello is literally the king of the Immaculate Conception table, at its "court" there are delicious sweets with which trays are filled to herald the Christmas festivities, here are a few.

You will hear them called cannaricoli, crustuli or turdilli and the recipe calls for kneading them without eggs and dipping them in cooked honey once fried. Scented with orange, lemon and cinnamon, on the other hand, is the cicerata, made of small balls made of flour and lard and covered in honey.

Petrali and sammartine, on the other hand, can be tasted in Reggio Calabria. These are short pastry cakes in the shape of ravioli with a filling of dried figs, sultanas, almonds and walnuts, citrus peel and cinnamon. 

In the area of San Giovanni in Fiore, the long and elaborate preparation of the pitta ‘mpigliata, a roll of puff pastry that is a treasure chest of aromas and flavours, begins with Immaculate Conception: dried fruit and sultanas, cloves and cinnamon, citrus peel and a dash of vermouth or other liqueur. Large stocks are prepared in homes and pastry shops.

They knead, fry and dip sweets in honey to fill trays and trays of sweets all different, made from simple, wholesome ingredients. You just have to try them all.