On January 17, several Italian towns celebrate the Festa di Sant'Antonio Abate, the Feast of Saint Anthony the Abbot. In some towns in the region of Abruzzo in central Italy it used to be celebrated with a type of extreme feasting known as the panarda.
La panarda is a banquet is served in many stages with many dishes, sometime numbering as many as sixty over the course of many hours, and was the inspiration for a few of Rabelais’ tales of Gargantua and Pantagruel. Ada Boni described it in her Italian Regional Cooking published in 1969.
“Abruzzo… This wild, mountainous region forms the setting to the panarda, a colossal meal the origins of which go back to pagan antiquity, now held only on great occasions. Today, the panarda has no deistic significance; it is merely an occasion of celebration. The meal beings at midday and often continues far into the night. With merciless regularity, as it must seem to those of modest appetite, dish follows dish. From time to time there is a short pause for conversation, then the interminable procession of dishes, which include every kind of local specialty, starts again.
A famous Neapolitan journalist of the nineteenth century, Edoardo Scarfoglio, describes how he was once a guest of one of these feasts. After the thirtieth dish he felt that he could eat no more. Consequently, he refused the next dish, but in doing so he ran a serious risk. His host, quite indifferent to the limitations of Scarfoglio’s digestive system, snatched up a rifle and threatened to kill him if he refused to finish the meal, as honor demanded.”
It’s somewhat surprising that something like this has not yet caught on in a big way in present-day super-sized America. It can be found, though. A restaurant in Philadelphia offered a thirty-five course version of it in October, for example.
There is a restaurant that offers a sample of it year-round, Filippo in Boston’s North End. Called Panarda D’Abruzzo on the menu it features: “Five pounds of fresh lobster stuffed with a variety of fresh seafood. Served over fazolettini stuffed pasta. The dish is covered with a net made of rustic country bread baked to golden brown.” It costs $235 – feeding more than a few people, of course – and requires a 24-hour advance notice. It is a decadent way to celebrate the second most famous Italian saint named Anthony.
Filippo
238 Causeway (North End), (617) 742-4143
Boston, Massachusetts 02114
www.filipporistorante.com
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