St. Joseph's Day Altars in New Orleans: What to Expect

St. Joseph's Day altars in New Orleans are tables of bread, cookies, fish, fruit and vegetables built in churches and schools around March 19, then opened to visitors who take home a blessed bread and a dried fava bean. They are acts of devotion, so go as a guest, bring a respectful attitude and a few cookies' worth of curiosity.

What are St. Joseph's Day altars in New Orleans?

An altar is a display of food built to honor St. Joseph, the patron saint of workers and of Sicily. Volunteers spend weeks baking, and the finished table is blessed, then opened to the public. Foods are meatless because the feast falls in Lent, and the leftovers are shared with charities. A city library blog describes the tradition as arriving with Italian immigrants around the turn of the twentieth century.

Visiting is a quiet, friendly experience, and volunteers are used to questions from first-time guests. Take a plate if one is offered, leave a donation if you can and ask the volunteers about their breads. They are glad to explain.

What food is on a Saint Joseph altar in New Orleans?

Expect breads shaped like a ladder, a hammer, a saw, a cross or a staff, a nod to Joseph the carpenter. Cookies are everywhere: sesame cookies, fig-filled cuccidati and lamb-shaped cakes. There are whole fish, fruit, vegetables, wine, and eggs baked into bread for rebirth. Sprinkled over pasta, sweetened breadcrumbs stand for sawdust.

Pasta Milanese is the dish most associated with the day, made with anchovies, raisins, pine nuts and tomatoes, and finished with those breadcrumbs. A Metairie parish served it at lunch for visitors, which says the food is meant to be shared, not just admired.

What are fava beans and cookies on an altar?

The dried fava bean is called the lucky bean. According to the tradition, it was the one crop that survived a famine in Sicily, and the story says Joseph answered the prayers of hungry families. Visitors take a bean home in a small bag, along with a cookie or a piece of blessed bread, and many keep the bean in a wallet or purse. It is a keepsake, not a snack.

Cookies are the other souvenir. Large altars bake tens of thousands, and some parishes begin in January. Most are made from simple recipes that families have kept for generations.

Where can you see a St. Joseph altar in New Orleans?

Three places were named by at least two independent sources, and each is a school or church open to the public for the feast. The archdiocese publishes a list of altars if you want one nearer to you:

• St. Francis Xavier in Old Metairie, which a local TV station featured with details of its bread shapes, cookies and fish and a pasta Milanese lunch.
• Brother Martin High School, whose altar is in its chapel on Elysian Fields Avenue.
• St. Joseph Church on Tulane Avenue, which appears on the archdiocese's public list of altars and in a New Orleans library blog about the tradition.

Altars follow a schedule, and many are open for just a few hours, so check each place before you set out.

How is this a Sicilian New Orleans tradition?

Sicily's St. Joseph tables are the model. Italian families who arrived in New Orleans brought the custom with them and kept it in churches and home altars. Today it is shared by people of all backgrounds, and the day is a reminder of how much of the city's food comes from Sicily, alongside the Creole and Cajun dishes tourists expect. The Italian food guide follows the thread into the city's red-sauce and muffuletta kitchens.

What should March 19 New Orleans food include?

If you cannot visit an altar, plan a meatless day: a plate of pasta, a fish dish and a cookie. Many bakeries sell St. Joseph's Day pastries around the feast, and some families host their own small altars at home. As always, ask before you assume that a bakery or kitchen has anything on the day.

How do you rate the dishes you try?

Rate each dish you eat, even if it is a single cookie. In the Mosey app "Had something else? Name the dish." is the place to write "fig cookie" or "pasta Milanese", and a line about the texture makes the note useful. Add a tag such as Bakery or Italian if it applies.

If the visit was with family, tag them and ask them to add their own rating of the same meal. Your ratings stay linked to the dish and your followers see what you rated, so rate honestly while the meal is fresh and add what you would order again.

Where next in the city?

The Metairie guide covers the neighborhood around St. Francis Xavier, and the Creole versus Cajun guide places Sicilian cooking in the wider picture. For the next big sweet season, see king cake season. The New Orleans hub lists every page for the city, and the US food guides cover the rest.

Take the Mosey app to your first altar, rate what you taste by the dish and keep a list of the places that taught you something.