Castanyada Festival Punt Intercanvi

OASIS 1: THE CHESTNUT FESTIVAL In Catalonia the “Castanyada”, Chestnut Festival, is the autumn celebration of the vigil of All Saints Day (Tots Sants). Chestnuts (castanyes) are toasted on a fire and are accompanied by sweet potatoes (moniatos) and “panellets”. Panellets are sweets made with potatoes, almonds and sugar; their origin is Moroccan. The word panellet comes from panet: an ancient offering to deceased family members. In the United Kingdom, Ireland, the United States and Canada we celebrate the popular Halloween. This festival was originated by the Celts (celtes), the people who inhabited Europe 2500 years ago. The 31st of October was the last day of summer in the Celtic calendar and it was believed that the spirits of the dead would leave the cemetery (cementiri) to take over the bodies of the living. In order to avoid this, the Celts would dirty their houses and decorate with bones, skulls and other disagreeable things in order to scare the spirits away. This is where the custom of wearing (disfressar-se) scary costumes comes from. According to the Chinese lunar calendar, the 5th of April is the festival of Qing Ming in which deceased family members are honoured with the typical dish of rice wrapped in bamboo (bambú) leaves and hard-boiled eggs. Children wear a ribbon with silk threads in seven colours on their wrists and adults compete with boats decorated with dragon heads. All the families visit the cemetery. The chestnut tree (castanyer) is the tree which adorns the highways and many parks in Romania. In the autumn we can frequently see chestnut vendors (castanyeres) toasting chestnuts in the street and selling them. In the north of the country, in the city Baia Mare, the “Castanyada” is a great chestnut festival celebrated every year. In Bulgaria we do not have this festival, although chestnut trees are planted all over: in the parks, in the streets and in the country. They are wild chestnut trees and both the leaves and the chestnuts are used to make natural remedies to cure illnesses of many kinds. We do not eat many chestnuts and sweet potatoes but we do eat a lot of pumpkin (carbassa), which is cooked in the same way as the sweet potatoes and we can buy it all over, since it is a very popular dessert (postres). In Senegal, during the autumn, the time which coincides with the end of the harvests (collites), in the villages and regions it is custom to organise sessions of traditional fights at night. By custom, the streets are filled with stands selling toasted wheat (blat) and peanuts (cacauets torrats). The festivities are not celebrated on a specific day, they can occur throughout the season, with special relevance on full-moon days.

http://www.puntintercanvi.org/dicc_nur/OASIS/pdf/CATALA/ANGLES/1.pdf