The Mona's Day. By Montse Farré

The Mona’s day
By Montse Farré


Hi everybody there, my name is Montse Farré, I’m second year English student. I’m from Catalonia, I was born in Lerida, but I live in Navalmoral since four years ago.

Last Easter I went back to my homeland, Lerida and I would like to talk to you about the traditional use we have there on Easter mondays, which consists of eating a sponge cake known as the Easter “Mona” . I got all of this information on the Internet and I have just made some changes to it, but the photograps shown here, were taken by myself and some of them were taken by my sister. I must tell they were specifically made for this article.

The Easter Mona

‘The Easter Mona’ is a typical confectionery of the Aragonese, Valencian and Catalonian regions and of certain areas of Murcia either. It is a sort of Easter cake the people here eat and taste to symbolize that the Lent and abstinence times are over.

Origin

Its name comes from the word “munna”, it is an arabic term, which literally means “mouth provisioning “. It was just a present the ancient moorish made to their lords and military chiefs.

The Making

The Mona’s ingredients are flour, sugar ,eggs and salt. Its a sort of mass which takes a lot of hand work to do the rolling. It is required that this mass be left alone to ferment by itself for about an hour before its baking in the oven. In Catalonia, the Mona’s base is made of sponge cake and later it is filled with yellow cream and chocolate or fruit marmalade instead, then it is covered with Catalan cream,.whose surface has been previously brown-toasted. The baker or confectioner carefully pours the cream over theMona and add almonds sticking them to the sides around. The picture shown here was made by courtesy of Teres confectionery.


As the time goes by, the Monas are being more and more embellished with colored feathers, or with little chicken figures made of chocolate and/ or covered with chocolate pills similar to the M&M’s candies.

Little by little, the original hen eggs that formerly were adorning the Monas, have been gradually substituted by chocolate eggs. Some time later, the chocolate ornaments have taken more and more importance. Thus, presently, some Monas made by confectioners and pastries masters are sculptures made of pure chocolate, or white one, or even artificially coloured chocolate. The sculptures which are a reference to well known cartoons like; Hello Kity, Micky mouse and many other famous cartoon animations watched by children all over the world, fairly attract the attention of kids and adults who spent hours enjoying their viewing. As you can see in the following photographs.

In other cases, these figures are related to famous characters, amongst them, football players like Pujol. Look at the Pujol’s figure in the picture below.

In some cases the prices of some of these figures necessarily surpass the price of the very cake containing them.

Traditional Uses

Traditionally the Mona is a present made by the godfather to his godson on Easter sundays after the Catholic mass. On Easter mondays it has become a tradition that two o three families be reunited to have a celebration meal. Sometimes it’s just a group of friends who gather to eat the Mona at some place of the countryside in the nearby.
It’s an authentic banket or dinner-party where lamb steaks, roasted rabbit, the paella and specially the wine are never missing.

In many towns the confectioner’s compete to show in their shop windows the most spectacular chocolate sculptures, which may be a scaled model of a building or some popular characters, or perhaps a set of cakes embellished with chocolate or “guirlache” figures. (Guirlache is made of nuts, almonds, hazels stuck altogether with caramel. It can be shown as a mass or as a hard block).

In Lérida, for instance, the Prats’ confectioner, one of the best in the area, has made this year a real size chocolate sculpture with different colors, presenting the famous soccer player Leo Messi. Look again the evidence in the next photograph.


They also gave me the chance to show you the wide variety of Monas, that undoubtedly are being sold today, the Mona’s day in Catalonia. A line of all of these Easter Monas inside the confectionery’s counter is shown here.

This cake was born typically to celebrate the Easter’s monday, and so it came along the custom of families going out to the countryside to enjoy it, while sharing the day together, turning the day into a good ocassion for everyone. Therefore, it has all ended up giving the cake’s name to the day, known today by many of us as the Mona’s day.