Sweet Beans for All Saints' Day

Today, being the Feast of All Saints, is a Holy Day of Obligation in the Roman Catholic Church. (However, since it fell on a Sunday this year, it did not require any more church-going.) That means that yesterday was Halloween, or All Hallows Eve, or even Hallowmas, depending on how far back into history you want to go. 'Hallows' meaning 'saints', while 'e'en' and 'eve' are short for evening, and 'mas' is 'mass'. So, therefore, Halloween is technically the vigil for All Saints' Day. I suppose that is a lot of decoding simply to tell you to get your tokhes to church, but there it is. And I hope you made it, because one of my favorite things in the world is listening to the Litany of the Saints.

However, it is 2009. So unless you are a nerdy history buff (or worse, a Catholic), Halloween is more of a day to dress up in costumes, go to a party, and eat a whole lot of garbage — which is also fun. Alternatively, you can run door-to-door going trick-or-treating.

One of my erstwhile careers was that of a professional bra-fitter in an up-scale department store. I still remember a young woman and her boyfriend coming into the lingerie department to pick out her costume. She needed a black push-up bra and a thong to wear with her black leather chaps for their Halloween party. She kept running out of the fitting room to get her boyfriend's opinion of her 'costume'. Oi. And another time a high-school girl came in dressed as a cheerleader, wearing a very short skirt and apparently not much underneath. She bought a pair of Calvin Klein boyshorts, and then stood right there in the lingerie department and put them on. Talk about some classy dames! Anyway, I digress.

I know I have said many times before that I like to eat in season; meaning asparagus in the spring, watermelon and raspberries in the summer, butternut squash in the fall, snickerdoodles in the winter, and that sort of thing. Lately we are also trying to eat in the spirit of the season, which is why I decided to make Sweet Bean Cookies for All Saints' Day.

Sweet Beans, or Fave Dei Morti as they are more appropriately called, are an Italian cookie. They are traditionally found in bakeries in Italy, Rome in particular, on All Saints' Day (which is often referred to as I Morti, meaning the dead). The cookies are shaped like fava beans which held an important role in ancient Rome. For the Feast of Feralia, people (typically the head-of-house) would toss a handful of favas over their shoulder for the wandering spirits to pick up in the night. Finding the beans quite sufficient, they would then take their leave. Also, fava beans were placed over the eyes of the dead before burial.

As much of a fan as I am of all things Italian, I have always found their cookies to be a bit suspicious. So when I saw this recipe for Sweet Beans, it did raise my eyebrows a bit. The main ingredient is nuts (almonds and pinenuts, to be exact), and there is no butter, no chocolate, no brown sugar, no vanilla extract — you get my point. However, being in the spirit of the season, I made them anyway. And then I proceeded to eat about 20 of them; Michael was a respectable close second, while Emilia held one in her hands for about an hour before finally throwing it away. In her defense, her new favorite food seems to be salt and vinegar chips. She does not usually have much of a sweet tooth (unless it is a cupcake, and by cupcake, I mean frosting).

Anyway, the cookies are so good. And they are very easy to make. I even peeled the almonds myself because PCC did not have blanched almonds. I was very grumpy with the idea of this until I did it. Honestly, it took 10 minutes, and half that time was letting the almonds soak in hot-hot water. So if you can't find blanched almonds, stop whining and just do it yourself.

The cookies are perfect with a cup of tea or what have you. And since they have no butter or chocolate or anything in them, they are practically a health food.

Sweet Bean Cookies

2 ½ cups blanched almonds

½ cup pine nuts

1 cup sugar

½ cup flour

1 teaspoon lemon zest

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

1 tablespoon grappa, rum, or brandy
confectioners' sugar, for dusting

Preheat the oven to 325° and line a baking sheet with parchment. (Alternatively, you can butter and flour the baking sheets.)

In a food processor, combine the almonds, pine nuts, and ½ cup of sugar. Blend until the nuts are very finely chopped. Transfer to a large bowl and stir in the remaining ½ cup sugar, flour, lemon zest, and cinnamon.

In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs and the booze. (I used Grand Marnier because we have no grappa, and the idea of rum made me a little queasy. Besides, the label on the Grand Marnier says it is an 'orange and brandy liqueur'.) Add this mixture to the nuts and stir with a wooden spoon until well combined. It should be moist throughout and beginning to form a ball.

Begin to form the cookies by pinching off a bit of the dough — no more than the size of a grape. Using your hands, roll it into a ball and shape into the form of a bean. Place on the baking sheet and keep going. I found it was easiest to rinse my hands every so often, otherwise the cookies became sticky and lost their 'smooth' appearance, making them much more difficult to work with. Place an inch apart on the baking sheet.

At this point you are supposed to take a knife and, using the dull edge, form a long groove lengthwise on each cookie. My cookies looked extraordinarily daft when I attempted this step, which is why I skipped it after seeing the first batch.

Bake for 15-17 minutes. (If you are doing 2 sheets at a time, then rotate 10 minutes into the baking time.) Cool on a wire rack.

Dust with confectioners' sugar before serving. And store the remainders in an air-tight container. (Recipe from: Italian Holiday Cooking, by Michele Scicolone. Harper Collins, 2001.)