Skip to content

A town square for an unsquare town

redbankgreen

Standing for the vitality of Red Bank, its community, and the fun we have together.

RED BANK: SFINGE, ZEPPOLI OR ONE OF EACH?

larosa-2-500x356-2268177Peter LaRosa gives PieHole a delicious history lesson on St. Joseph’s Day sfinges and zeppolis. (Photo by Jim Willis. Click to enlarge)

By JIM WILLIS

Monday’s St. Patrick’s Day celebrations may have been mostly about the beer and a bit about the corned beef, but Wednesday is St. Joseph’s Day, and that is all about the food. More specifically, it’s about the pastries: the sfinge and the zeppoli.

PieHole checked it with Peter LaRosa, who along with his brother, Sal, owns LaRosa’s Pastry Shop in Shrewsbury. LaRosa explained the difference between the sfinge and the zeppoli – each of which goes by more than one spelling, depending on dialect – and filled our ears with the history and tradition of St. Joseph’s Day like a pair of cannoli.

“Joseph was the father of Jesus, and the tradition is that if you have someone named Joseph or Josephine in your family, you buy [pastries] for them,” LaRosa says. “They can’t buy them for themselves. In the tradition, Jesus serves Joseph. It’s all about taking care of Joseph.”

And, as LaRosa tells it, you don’t bring Joseph/Josephhine just one zeppoli: you bring a dozen or two. At least that’s the way it used to be up until the 1970s or so, according to LaRosa.

“People used to buy them by the dozens. The old-timers, they’ll still buy six or maybe a dozen. Nowadays though, people buy two or three.”

LaRosa says that as Italians moved out of New York, traditions started to fall by the wayside.

“Out here [in the suburbs], you have a bigger mix of people, and not everyone keeps up with tradition. Part of what we do here is try to keep that alive.”

One way LaRosa keeps the customs alive is by offering the sfinge and zeppoli only from about two weeks before St. Joseph’s Day until Easter, which this year falls on April 20.

“After that, that’s it,” he says. “You have to wait until next year. People will ask for them throughout the year, but we don’t make them because then it’s not special anymore. It’s special to have them just for St. Joseph’s to keep the tradition.”

As for the difference between the sfinge ($4.95 each) and the zeppoli ($3.95 each), LaRosa says the dough is the same, but the sfinge is the original pastry that you would have found on the traditional St. Joseph’s feast table in Sicily – albeit made with lard instead of shortening.

The sfinge is a larger pastry, filled with cannoli filling — typically ricotta cheese with powdered sugar.  LaRosa tells PieHole that the sfinge is what his great, great grandfather was making back in the 1850s though it probably would have been a goat’s milk cheese in the filling.

LaRosa tells us that the zeppoli started gaining popularity in the 1940’s because it was easier to make and faster to fry.

“Back [in the ’40s], the zeppoli was the new thing, and they would be filled with custard instead of cannoli filling.”

Now, LaRosa makes both sfinges and zeppolis, and offers them filled with either custard or cannoli filling.

“The old-fashioned Italians, though, they don’t want the zeppoli, they want the sfinge,” he says. “They’ll be here tomorrow asking for them.”

 

 

Remember: Nothing makes a Red Bank friend happier than to hear "I saw you on Red Bank Green!"
Partyline
THEY’RE BACK!
Ospreys returned to the skies over Red Bank this week for the first time since they migrated to warmer climes in late fall. With temperature ...
SPRING IS SPRUNG
RED BANK: Spring 2024 arrives on the Greater Red Bank Green with the vernal equinox at 11:06 p.m. Tuesday.
RED BANK’S FINEST – AND NEWEST
Red Bank Police Officer Eliot Ramos was sworn in as the force’s newest patrolman Thursday, and if you’re doing a double take thinkin ...
EASTER EGG MAYHEM AT THE PARK
An errant whistle spurred an unexpectedly early start to the Spring Egg Hunt on Sunday, which had been scheduled to begin at eggsactly 11am ...
PRESEASON DOCKWORK
RED BANK: With winter winding down, marina gets ready for boating season with some dockwork on our beautiful Navesink River.
CORNED BEEF AND DISCO FRIES?
It’s Friday, and smart Lent-observing Leprechauns know the pot of gold at the end of Red Bank’s rainbow is actually the deliciou ...
SURFBOARD DITCHED
It’s a violation of etiquette in surfing to ditch your board.  (it could hit another surfer and hurt them). But someone appears to ha ...
ELSIE, TAKE ME WITH YOU!
Soaked by pouring rain with the temperature hovering in the low 40’s, this sign in the window of Elsie’s Subs on Monmouth Street ...
WALK THIS WAY
PARTYLINE: Before-and-afters of a sidewalk cleanup on West Street.
SOGGY NOTION
RED BANK: Breezeway sculpture captured the mood downtown as heavy rains fell Saturday morning.
HOME DELIVERY
RED BANK: After a subdivision, an instant house rises on a new Catherine Street lot.
COMMUNITY PROFILES
For Black History Month, Red Bank's Community Engagement and Equity Advisory Committee has been running a series of local profiles on Facebo ...
HEARTY FAREWELL FOR HARDY
RED BANK: Council to honor DPU supervisor Rich Hardy, who retired recently after almost 39 years of keeping things running.
HOMEBOUND? READ ON…
RED BANK: Can't get to the public library? It's now offering free delivery and pickups for homebound borough residents.
TAMING A BEAST OF A WEEK
RED BANK: After the second snowfall of the week, a borough family finds the perfect use for it – a Godzilla snow sculpture.
RED BANK: LIBRARY CLOSED, BUT THE HILL’S OPEN
RED BANK: Though the library was closed by a snowstorm, kids got to enjoy the riverfront property's steep slope Tuesday.
LIGHT(HOUSE) MAKEOVER
This year, getting ready for spring means a midwinter makeover for Strollo's Lighthouse in Red Bank.
TODAY: LOCAL PUPPY COMPETES ON ANIMAL PLANET’S “PUPPY BOWL”
Red Bank’s very own rescue puppy, Biscuit, is set to compete in Animal Planet’s Puppy Bowl this Sunday, February 11, at 2 PM. Th ...
WHAT? NO redbankgreen NEWSLETTER?
Apologies to redbankgreen newsletter subscribers: the daily email hasn’t gone out for two days because of technical issues.
RED BANK: TIRED OF SKEETERS?
RED BANK: Tired of mosquito bites every summer? Monmouth County has a free program to help eliminate skeeter breeding grounds.