Arnadí, also known as carabassa santa ("holy pumpkin"), caramull ("brim") or cassoleta de Dijous Sant ("Holy Thursday little casserole") 🍰
It's a cake made of chestnut and pumpkin eaten during the Holy Week in some areas of the València area and the Central Valencian Country.
The most widespread recipe uses toasted or boiled pumpkin, boiled sweet potatoes, lemon peel, almonds, pine nuts, egg yolks, sugar and cinnamon.
The origin of this dish is unknown, but it's documented in the area since at least the 1600s. Some food historians point that it might be related to an Amazigh (=indigenous Northern African) dish called sellou (سْلّو), tquawt (تْقاوْتْ), sfouf (سْفوفْ), zammitta (الزٌمٌيطة) or bssisse (بْسيِسْ), depending on the region, which is eaten for Ramadan.
An Amazigh sellou. Photo by picturepartners.
The sellou is made of almond, cinnamon, wheat, oil or butter, and other spices that vary depending on the region. It has the same shape as the arnadí and is also decorated with almonds.
Another noticeable similarity is that both are eaten during their religion's holy time: Ramadan for Islam and the Holy Week for Catholics. They're both very important religious celebrations based on the lunar calendar and based on fasting or restricting food (for Ramadan, Muslims can't eat during sunlight hours and, for the Holy Week, Catholics aren't supposed to eat meat and eggs and have to eat simple humble food). Both religions view it as a way of sharing compassion with poor people and to distance themselves from Earthly desires, and in the case of Christians also to get closer to Jesus' suffering. Even though most people in historically-Catholic countries don't follow these religious rules anymore, it's still common to eat the traditional dishes of the time.
To get ready for the hours of fasting or reduced food intake, both communities have the tradition of eating high-calories, high-energy dishes, such as the arnadí and sellou.
The arnadí, in its current recipe, can't date back to the Middle Ages, when the Valencian Country was conquered by Islam and received Arab and Amazigh population. The reason is simple: its main ingredients (pumpkin and sweet potato) would not reach us until after the colonization of the American continent, where these species are from. But it can be possible that arnadí/sellou was made of almond paste at the time and, centuries later, they were changed for pumpkin and sweet potato paste, which is cheaper and it turned out to taste even better.
Photos and info source: Tasta'l d'ací.
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