Sicilian Culture

St. Joseph's Altar

From the 1870s to the 1920s, upwards of 300,000 Italians, primarily Sicilians sailing the direct steamship route from Palermo to New Orleans, immigrated to Louisiana. Only New York had a greater population of Sicilian immigrants at the time.

The first waves of Sicilians were coaxed to Louisiana, particularly the sugar-growing parishes, by a plantation economy floundering in the wake of the Civil War and Emancipation. Many of these new arrivals settled along the German Coast parishes of St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, and St. James — now the northeastern boundary of Acadiana — where they lived and worked as farmers, introducing new crops, including tomatoes, garlic, artichokes, and fava beans, to the state and reinvigorating the truck farming and packinghouse industries that supplied fresh produce to New Orleans and other cities throughout the nation. Facing prejudice and ostracism, the Sicilian immigrants formed social and benevolent organizations often centered around the Catholic Church.  

March 19 marks the Feast Day of St. Joseph, when Catholic churches throughout Louisiana and Acadiana erect St. Joseph’s Altars, a Sicilian tradition in which tables are elaborately set with baked goods (most notably breads formed in symbolic shapes), pastries, seafood, fruits and vegetables, as well as prayer candles, relics, and remembrances of the deceased. The altar celebrations, which often conclude with a pasta dinner, are usually open to the public. Visitors are given a dried fava bean, a token of good luck.

The Sicilian contributions to New Orleans culinary culture are well known — the muffuletta, most famously — but the foodways in a corner of southeast Acadiana are also worth noting. In lower Lafourche Parish, down the Bayou Lafourche from Larose, Cajun cooks frequently prepare seafood dishes featuring pasta, commonly called “macaroni” there regardless of shape. In lower Lafourche, as in neighboring lower Terrebonne Parish, another unique local dish is spaghetti with eggs. Alzina Toups, the celebrated Cajun chef and Galliano-based  restaurateur who passed away in 2022, counted the Sicilian-tinged shrimp in tomato sauce and shrimp and pasta casserole among her most cherished recipes.

Since 2019, each March, Abbeville’s Sicilian Celebration has honored the history, culture, and contributions of Acadiana’s Sicilian roots in the downtown area surrounding the Sam Guarino Blacksmith Shop Museum & Heritage Center.

Salvadore Guarino immigrated to Abbeville from the Sicilian city of Cefalù in 1905, before opening a blacksmith shop a half-dozen years later. He built wagon wheels, repaired farm equipment, and made nutria and muskrat fur stretchers for the community during its agricultural heyday, and as the area’s workforce transitioned to the oil industry, specialized in welding jobs. His wrought iron work can still be found throughout town. Sam’s son Tony continued blacksmithing in the location until retiring in 2005, when the family donated the historic building to the City of Abbeville.

Abbeville’s annual Sicilian Celebration features Italian crafts and souvenirs, a team-cooking competition, and of course plenty of wine, beer, and food. 

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