What have the Miss Italia beauty contest and the Easter Dove in common?
They were invented by the same man: Dino Villani.
Differnt „antique“ legends evolved around the invention of the Colomba di Pasqua (Easter Dove), but in reality its invention had pratical reasons.
Do you remember my article about the Panettone and the fact that the company Motta was the first one to industrialize the production of the Panettone?
This industrialization was also the reason for the birth of the Easter Dove
It didn’t suit Motta that the machines for the production of Panettone were standing still for months after the Christmas festivities. “An incredible waste”, thought Motta and so did too his marketing expert Dino Villani.
What could be done about this?
Easy: Invent a new sweet that could be produced with the same production line as the Panettone.
But who would by a Christmas sweet in springtime?
Motta simply changed the shape! Nearly the same type of dough was shaped into a dove: The dove is the symbol for spring and fits also the Easter festivity. Thus the Easter dove was advertised as follows in the 1930ies:
„Colomba pasquale Motta, il dolce che sa di primavera”.
“Motta’s Easter Dove, the sweet that tastes like spring.“
The „Easter miracle“ was performed (!) and the Colomba was born. That happened nearly 100 years ago.
I prefer the classic version that you can find here on the picture, but there is also a version with chocolate.
Another very typical Easter sweet is a giant chocolate Easter egg (some of them are up to 30-50 cm big!) with a little surprise for the children (or the inner child) hidden inside the egg. These eggs can be easily opened in karate kid style.
