Category:
Fresh pastries and bakery, biscuit, confectionary and pastry products;

1. Product name:
Pasimata

2. Other names:
Passimata.

3. Short product description:
Pasimata is a traditional Easter cake whose long and laborious preparation can, depending on the quantity of the dough, take up to two days.
Pasimata from the Lucca plains is made with flour, sugar, lard or butter, bread dough, yeast, milk and aniseed. It’s shaped into a bun.
In Garfagnana, it’s made with butter, vino santo, egg, “00” wheat flour, sugar, yeast, aniseed and sultanas. In this case, the pasimata has a circular shape with a diameter of 25-30cm and width of 10cm. It’s a brown, almost black, colour with a golden yellow interior.

4. Production area:
The entire province of Lucca.

5. Production status:
r disappeared r at risk r active

6. Production process:
The method includes five leavening phases, which are:
1. Mix the flour with the sourdough starer and leave to rise. Fresh yeast dissolved in warm water can also be used and is mixed with the flour, before being left to rise.
2. Add 1/12 of every ingredient (except the aniseed and sultanas), knead well and leave to rise.
3. Add 3/12 of the ingredients as above, knead well and leave to rise.
4. Add 5/12 of the ingredients as above, knead well and leave to rise.
5. Add the remaining ingredients including the aniseed and sultanas, knead well, place in trays and leave to rise.

Bake at 180°C for 1 hour. Test with a toothpick. If it comes out clean, the pasimata is ready.

7. Materials, equipment and premises used for production:
– Kitchen utensils
– Oven

8. Notes on traditionalism, homogeneity of spread and persistence of production rules over time:
Pasimata is a poor man’s bun that is prepared on Easter eve and taken to be blessed, along with eggs, on Holy Saturday or Easter mass. In the original version, it was a simple unsweetened bread that has been enriched with lard and sugar over time.
Once upon a time, it was made exclusively at home during the Easter period. The housewives would compete to see who could make the highest and best-risen pasimata. It was baked in the wood-fired oven at home or taken to the local bakery, where one paid an amount for each tray baked. It could be cylindrical or doughnut shaped. The doughnut version was threaded onto a person’s arm and taken to church to be blessed on Easter morning.

9. Production:
Around 2,500kg is produced in local bakeries in the various municipalities of Garfagnana annually. A good 80% of that is destined to be sold directly, while the rest goes to local stores.