San Martino Day

Tomorrow, November 11 is Festa di San Martino, a traditional Venetian festival, and one of my favorites. According to the legend, Saint Martin (before becoming a saint), helped a poor cold beggar by giving the beggar half of his cloak to keep him warm.  St. Martin is remembered for his kindnesses to the poor.  The half of the cloak retained by Saint Martin became a famous relic.
Across Europe you will find various ways St. Martin's day is celebrated, including eating goose,eating roasted chestnuts and also drinking new wine.

Here in Venice, it's remembered more with special sweets.  All the bakeries in town bake a very unique cookie just for this holiday, a cookie in the shape of a horse with St Martin on it's back. The horse is decorated with elaborate candies and chocolates all over it.

In addition, on November 11, children all over the city dress in a red capes and crowns, and travel in small groups through their communiites banging on pots and pans, singing a little tune about St. Martin. (wish I could sing it for you, but I can't. Sorry.) The children stop at local shops, where they receive candies and treats. Very similar to Halloween, actually.

Each year I look forward to seeing the arrival of the horse cookies in the shop windows of all the local bakeries. They can range in sized from small, just a few inches high, to huge, nearly 2 feet tall, each with incredibly fancy decorations of various colored icings and candies stuck to the cookie.  It's like having a Christmas stocking full of stuff all on just one cookie!

My sad San Martino day cookie did not make it home from the bakery intact this year.  Here it is-complete with broken legs and head! Still beautiful though.

Happy San Martino Day to all!

San Martino Day- November 11

On November 11,  it was San Martino Day here in Venice.  I love this holiday- it's kind of a cross between Halloween and Christmas, because the kids dress up in costume and they get presents. Well, just one kind of present, a cookie in the shape of a horse. Like this one:

This one is huge, about 20 inches tall, however they also come in all sizes with incredible varieties of decorations.  Another incredible thing about them is the price. A large one, like this, is around 45-55 Euros each. Smaller ones, about 12 inches tall are in  the 12-20 Euro range. Incredible! But what a great tradition!! About a week before San Martino day, all the bakeries have piles of horse cookies in the front windows, one more beautiful than the next.

On San Martino day, the children dress up with a cape- usually red - and a crown (like little super heros and heroines), grab their mom's pots and pans, lids and wooden spoons, and get out in the streets of Venice in small groups to parade around singing a traditional San Martino song.  They stop at all the shops where the shopkeepers give them candy.  See- like Halloween for us in the USA!

I googled Saint Martin, so I could give you an official version of what his claim to fame is. According to Wikipedia:

In the 4th century, Saint Martin met a starving, freezing beggar at the gates of the city of Amiens. He cut his cloak in two with his sword and gave half to the man. For that reason, Martin is a saint associated with the poor. It is also said that at the moment he tore his cloak, the sun came out and that is why an Indian summer here is known as an estate di san Martino.The 11th November is the festa of this favourite saint and traditionally the day when the novello [new] wine is opened.


This year, Mike and I introduced this Venetian tradition to our friends Jim and Cissie who have been visiting from Columbia, Maryland.  It was Cissie's birthday this week, so we took the opportunity to celebrate with one of these giant horse cookies instead of a cake.   We all sat around the dining room table pulling off hooves, ears, tail and assorted body parts until every last yummy bite was devoured. 

San Martino Day

We started seeing horse cookies in the windows of all the bakeries here a few days before November 11th, which is San Martino day. We knew very little about what the day was all about, so I had to go look it up. Here's what I found......

In the 4th century, Saint Martin met a starving, freezing beggar at the gates of the city of Amiens. He cut his cloak in two with his sword and gave half to the man. For that reason, Martin is a saint associated with the poor. It is also said that at the moment he tore his cloak, the sun came out and that is why an Indian summer here is known as an estate di san Martino.The 11th November is the festa of this favourite saint and traditionally the day when the novello [new] wine is opened.

Here in Venice, on San Martino day, we saw children parading in the streets in small groups with their parents. They all had red capes on, and wore paper crowns. It looked like they had some art project in school that day to make their crowns. All the children carried pots, pans and wooden spoons, and as they went along they banged on the pots and all sang a song. Our favorite was a little boy who had the lids of two pots he was using as cymbals! The children stop in at all the shops to collect candies- a little like Halloween in the U.S.

Here's a group of red caped crusaders stopping in at Tonolo- a local bakery near Campo San Pantalon:



This cookie is about 2 feet tall.. WOW!!!

Each horse cookie was a sight to behold, one more beautifully decorated than the next.

I've never seen cookies quite like these before. I'm already looking forward to San Martino next year!