La Sparsciandata

Published for the first time in 1975 by Secondino Freda and republished by Sandro Servi in 2005, this funny poem in Judaic-Romanesco language is a compendium of Italian Jewish gastronomy that shows its direct connection with Purim already in the title. In fact, the word Sparsciandata originates from spasciandata, a term in popular use (from the Turkish pashah) alluding to an abundant banquet, here mixed with the name of Haman’s eldest son, Parshandata, as an obvious allusion to the opulent banquets of both the biblical accounts and those organized on Purim. The manuscript, found by chance by the Roman physician Luciano Muscardin, had initially been dated to the 19th century, while other scholars think that the dating should be extended to the first decade of the 20th century on the basis of text analysis.

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Listen to Giordana Sermoneta’s reading