All Souls' Day — Traditional sweets and dried fruit

The dead who bring gifts

All Souls’ Day is one of the oldest and most deeply rooted Sicilian traditions. In its popular form — preserved in Nicosia until recent years — on the night between 1 and 2 November the dead returned to the homes of the living and, for the children, left gifts: sweets, Martorana fruit, dried fruit, small toys.

On the evening of 1 November children would write a small wish-list and leave it under the bed or on a small table. On the morning of 2 November, before going to the cemetery, they discovered their gifts.

What was eaten (and still is)

The typical All Souls’ sweets in Nicosia are:

• Ossa dei morti (dead-men’s bones — hard biscuits of flour, sugar and almonds, shaped like long bones);
• Frutta di Martorana (mock fruit in coloured marzipan);
• Pupi di zucchero (small polychrome sugar statuettes — knights, paladins, dancers);
• Dried fruit: walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, dried figs;
• Nzuddi (hard-paste biscuits with anise or vanilla).

Mass and cemetery

On the morning of 2 November Nicosians go to the municipal cemetery for the commemoration Mass and to visit family graves. The rite remains strong: the Nicosia cemetery on 2 November draws ~2,000 people during the day’s opening hours.

Why we talk about it

The tradition of All Souls’ sweets is a living but fragile tradition: it passes within families, but in younger families — smaller, less tied to historic pastry shops, more “exposed” to the Northern European culture of Halloween — it is slowly fading.

The Municipality and the Pro Loco of Nicosia have started in 2024 to document the tradition through public workshops in historic pastry shops, family interviews and photographic records of the preparations. The goal is not to lose a practice that has shaped the memory of entire generations.

For visitors from outside

All Souls’ Day is not a tourist event: it is a family and religious practice. Visitors who arrive on 1-2 November find a town quiet in the morning and warm in the afternoon. Historic pastry shops open before dawn for those who want to watch the preparation of traditional sweets (by booking; see the Tourism Office).