Italian cuisine customs celebrating this festival include wearing red clothing, eating Sicilian pastries known as zeppole and giving food to the poor. On Easter Sunday, lamb is served throughout Italy. A typical Easter Sunday breakfast in Umbria and Tuscany includes salami, boiled eggs, wine, Easter Cakes, and pizza. The common cake for Easter Day is the Colomba Pasquale (literally, Easter dove), which is often simply known as "Italian Easter cake" abroad. It is supposed to represent the dove, and is topped with almonds and pearl sugar. On Christmas Eve a symbolic fast is observed with the "cena di magro" ("light dinner"), a
Easter Vigil Easter Vigil Easter Vigil, also called the Paschal Vigil or the Great Vigil of Easter, is a service held in traditional Christian churches as the first official celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus. Historically, it is during this service that people are baptized and that adult catechumens are received into full communion with the Church. It is held in the hours of darkness between sunset on Holy Saturday and sunrise on Easter Day – most commonly in the evening of Holy Saturday or midnight – and is the first celebration of Easter, days traditionally being considered to begin at sunset.