catalan festivities

1. LA CASTANYADA
A chestnut festival

2. CONTENTS
• Introduction
• When
• Origins
• Nowadays
• Traditions
• Rituals
• Proverbs
• Songs

3. INTRODUCTION
The Castanyada is a popular Catalan festival, celebrated on
31th October. It consists of a meal of chesnuts, panallets,
sweet potatoes and preserved fruits, typically
with moscatell (sweat wine) to drink.
The festival is usually
depicted with the figure of
a castanyera: an old lady,
dressed in peasant's clothing
and wearing a headscarf, sat
behind a table, roasting
chestnuts for street sale.

4. WHEN

5. ORIGINS
Like Halloween, its origins are in an
ancient ritual festival of the dead.
It seems that the tradition of eating
these foods comes from the fact that
during All Saints’ night, the night
before All Souls’ Day in
the Christian tradition, bell
ringers would ring bells in
commemoration of the dead into the
early morning. Friends and relatives
would help with this task, and
everyone would eat these foods for
sustenance.

6. NOWADAYS
In recent years, the Castanyada has become
a revetlla of All Saints and is celebrated in the home and
community. It is the first of the four main school festivals,
alongside Christmas, Carnival and St. Geroge’s Day,
without reference to ritual or commemoration of the dead.

7. TRADITIONS
• 1st of November we eat a sweet thing
called panellets (no translation available, in
literal English "little breadies"). They are in
fact marzipan balls coated with pine
kernels or smashed almonds.
• Around the time of this celebration, it is
common for street vendors to sell hot
toasted chestnuts wrapped in newspaper.
In many places, confectioners often
organise raffles of chestnuts and preserved
fruit.

8. RITUALS
Some versions of the story state that the Castanyada
originates at the end of the 18th century and comes from
the old funeral meals, where other foods, such
as vegetables and dried fruit were not served.
The meal had the symbolic
significance of a communion with
the souls of the departed: while the
chestnuts were roasting, prayers
would be said for the person who
had just died

9. PROVERBS
• Any de bolets, any de castanyes: Year with mushrooms,
year with chestnuts.
• Castanya torrada i calenta escalfa les mans...i el ventre!:
Roasted and hot chestnut warms your hands ... and your
tummy!
• De castanyes, qui més en pela més en menja:
Chestnuts, the more you peel the more you eat.

10. SONGS
LA CASTANYERA (THE CHESTNUT SELLER)
Quan ve el temps de menjar castanyes, (When it’s time to eat chestnuts)
la castanyera, la castanyera (the chestnut seller, the chestnut seller)
Ven castanyes de la muntanya (she sells some chestnuts in the countryside)
A la plaça de la ciutat (and in the city square)
La camisa li va petita (her shirt is too small)
La faldilla li fa campana (her skirt is too big)
Les sabates li fan cloc-cloc (her shoes sounds like cloc-cloc)
I el ballar sempre gira així (and when she daces she turns like this)

11. MARRAMEU
Marrameu torra castanyes,
a la voreta del foc;
ja n’hi peta una als morros,
ja tenim marrameu mort.
Pica ben fort, pica ben fort,
que piques fusta,
pica ben fort.

12. 2nd ESO Students, Group D