For those who are looking for quality, and an image that isn't mass-produced and industrial, and who take credit for it, on Youliguria you can find a list and information on the bakeries and artisan workshops that produce traditional Easter sweets
Dove
or chocolate egg? Or both? A few years ago, a Coldiretti research study claimed
that the consumption of Colomba (sweet dove), the traditional cake that is the
counterpart to Christmas panettone, based on a marketing idea of the Milanese
manufacturer Motta in 1930, with the same ingredients., won out, but just
slightly. In fact, the tradition of the Easter dove is very old: the most
accredited legend dates it back to the Lombard period and the siege of Pavia in
the second half of the 500s by King Alboin that ended at Easter. Peace was
sealed with the gift to the king of a cake in the shape of a dove. In many
cases, families still make a sweet bread at Easter that is shaped like the bird
symbolising peace and is enriched with three hard-boiled eggs coloured with
herbs and flowers placed in place of the head and wings. In the Ligurian
tradition, the dough today is similar to pandolce, it takes at least three days
to knead, and the butter's mixing function is replaced with extra virgin olive
oil from the Riviera.
The
other Easter symbol in the gifts and tables of the feast is the egg, sweet or
salted, considered in all cultures a symbol of life and associated in
Christianity with the Resurrection of Christ. The salted one, often produced in
the family or in the bakery next door, in Liguria is called 'cavagnetto', a
small basket of sweet pastry with a coloured hard-boiled egg in the centre,
held in place by other pastry and baked in the oven. The origin of the
chocolate egg dates back to the Sun King, Louis XIV, who in the early 18th
century had it created by his court cook as a gift to replace the 'symbolic'
gold and silver ones. With chocolate, the quantum leap was made at the
beginning of the 20th century (some say in Holland, some in England, some in
Turin) with the creation of concave moulds that made it possible to better
consume the chocolate and put a small gift inside.
So
mass and industrial production also started, which, however, did not outclass
the goodness of the eggs produced by the artisan chocolatiers and provided them
with the possibility of customising the surprises inside.
A
wide selection of Ligurian artisans producing doves, chocolate eggs and other
traditional sweets, selected by the Regione Liguria quality label, are on the
Youliguria.it platform