BRISTOL — Those of us who have given up sweets for Lent may find solace that a popular Rhode Island feast day is coming up: St. Joseph’s Day. And with it, comes the zeppole.
A zeppola, officially called Zeppole di san Giuseppe in Italian, is a deep-fried pastry often filled with cream, topped with powdered sugar, and a cherry. Essentially, it’s a cross between a cream puff and a donut.
According to Dining Chicago, an early version of the zeppola originated in ancient Rome, the same time and place where Catholicism began to change the world. However, the pastry as we know it today appeared centuries later, after St. Joseph was credited with saving Sicily from a drought in the Middle Ages. Then in the 1500s, a Neapolitan convent started making the pastry in honor of St. Joseph and was further popularized in the 1800s by a baker who sold them on the streets of Naples every year on March 19.
Rhode Island’s extensive Italian heritage makes the zeppola quite the staple in the Diocese of Providence. Father Henry P. Zinno, pastor at both St. Mary’s and Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Bristol, has plenty of fond memories taking part in the zeppole tradition. At the Zinno household, the third week in March always prompted a short break of celebration against the backdrop of the Lenten season. His father was Italian and his mother was Irish, so both St. Patrick’s Day and St. Joseph’s Day were a big deal, especially since they are two days apart.
Father Zinno’s family heritage would eventually inspire him to share his cooking skills as a priest. He clarified that while being a “culinary priest” in the diocese is not an official title, it’s still a God-given talent that’s directly linked to his success in bringing people closer to Christ.
“Most priests actually don’t like to cook,” he said. “There’s a lot of work that goes on during the day, especially at the school. So to plan a meal or something like that, most priests will either go out and get a pizza or get something from a restaurant, whereas I’ve always enjoyed cooking.”
Father Zinno’s kitchen is a prime spot for supporting fundraisers for multiple parishes with St. Mary’s right around the corner. He’s hosted countless guests as part of auction fundraisers, including Bishop Emeritus Thomas J. Tobin.
Father Zinno has become a beacon of hope and joy for his community in recent years. When the COVID-19 Pandemic shut down churches, he resolved to dive into the world of YouTube and start his own channel so he could continue to connect with his parishioners. To lift their spirits, he essentially made his own cooking show with the help of his parochial vicars and one of his nephews. You can find 25 episodes that are about 30 minutes each if you type in “Father Zinno’s Cooking Lessons” on YouTube.
“It was a lot of fun,” he said. “People would be watching it and they would be typing things like ‘Oh Father this is so wonderful we get to see you.’ It was a fun thing to get the parish together. I had friends in Florida, all over the place watching it.”
In a way, the pandemic was a blessing for the Bristol parishes. St. Mary’s and Mount Carmel have several long-running food-based fundraisers, such as the annual Mount Carmel Parish Feast on July 16 It’s a century-long Italian tradition that dates as far back as 1899—at the same parish.
“All of the Italian immigrants lived on Roma Street up here,” Father Zinno said. “So they’d block off the street and everybody made something.”
Despite the pandemic, the priests of Bristol knew they needed to still have the fundraiser somehow. The feast had been consistently raising $100,000, and canceling it completely would be a massive blow to their funding.
Their solution? Takeout.
Father Zinno said that once he and his fellow priests decided to offer takeout by ordering online instead of a dine-in experience, the money they raised far exceeded any other year by $30,000. Needless to say, they still use the takeout format to this day.
“There’s no waste of food,” Father Zinno pointed out. “Under the tent, if you cook something, you have to throw it out at the end of the day. Plus it was $15,000 just to rent the tent.”
Father Zinno said there’s a reason some sort of food is always connected with celebrations like St. Joseph’s Day. He knows from experience that faith and food are closely connected, since food is an essential sustenance for all of us. Christ himself never forgot this, and it’s part of the reason he gave us his body and blood in the Holy Eucharist.
“Jesus always talked about heaven as the eternal banquet feast,” Father Zinno said. “Food plays an essential part in the teachings of Jesus and how that is ultimately elevated to the Mass. We receive him and that strengthens our body, but it strengthens our soul, and that becomes even more important.”
