The sweet Easter bread that eventually won over my mother’s Italian parents-in-law

If my mom added anything to the traditional recipe, it was pizzazz. She drenched the loaves in golden honey and sprinkled sugar on top to give them a little shine. The cousins? Her Fuatha didn’t impress. One made Easter bread so dry my grandmother told Viola it would choke the birds. Perhaps this cousin had learned how to bake the bread from her, and perhaps conveniently forgot to mention a few key ingredients. If Lent was about seeking forgiveness, Viola wasn’t about acknowledging sin

Eventually, my parents and siblings and I moved from Pennsylvania to Big Stone Gap, Virginia. My grandmother drove across four states to come and see us for Easter. She pulled up in front of our old Victorian house while we lined up like The King and I kids, ready to unload essentials from the back of her 1975 Ford Gran Torino station wagon: coolers of fresh scamorza and salami, cans of Taralli and her precious Fuatha loaves, along with those of her sisters.

After unloading, my mother lined up the loaves, including her own, and put on the coffee. My father would choose the winner in a blind tasting test. There were missions. Whose was scaly? Whose was tasteless? Which aunt used too much flour? The discussion lasted longer than the coffee, but not a crumb was ever lost, not even loaves of bread eliminated in the first round. We set aside those that are too dry to make French toast. We sliced ​​the less sweet ones for ham and butter sandwiches and served the pretty loaves for dessert. But only the winner made it onto the cake base on Easter Sunday.

After careful tasting, my dad picked my mom’s fuatha as the best of the bunch because it was moist and sweet (and maybe because he had to live with her). It was the first time an in-law had snatched victory from my grandmother’s jaws. Nobody from Lombardy had beaten the Venetians at their own game – with their own recipe – since the Etruscans.

The next day, Easter Sunday, our family, disguised by the Church, gathered in the dining room. In the center stood Mom’s victorious Fuatha on her pedestal. As we walked silently to our seats, my father called for his mother. She emerged from the kitchen in her neat suit and hat, looking around as if someone owed her money—or at least had ransacked her purse. My dyspeptic sister Pia started crying. In an attempt to break the tension, my mother turned to my grandmother, “Mom, is something wrong?”

“You know how it is, Ida. I get a little moody when I cut out sugar for Lent.”

In that case,” my mother said boldly, “try a slice of my fuatha.”

Like a sommelier for Easter bread, Viola examined the slice, smelled it, put it to her lips and bit into it. We all watched in fear. But then a wonderful thing happened: after a single chew, she smiled — the first smile we’d seen since her son punched her in the Easter Bread Contest. Then she nodded, turned to the others and said, “Let’s eat.”

Adriana Trigiana is the bestselling author of 20 books published in 38 countries. Her latest novel The Good Left Undone is out now.

Get the recipe

If there were an Easter bread grand prix, this tender orange and lemon scented bread would be the clear winner.

view recipe