The Beatine di Gemme are essentially biscuits made with shortcrust dough, and are crumbly and delicate, and taste of butter. These biscuits depict a martyr with her hands joined in prayer, or lying down with three spindles in her head, as a symbol of martyrdom. The Blessed Panacea in fact was killed by her stepmother, who caught her praying instead of working and the crime was perpetrated with the spindle Panacea used to weave. At times also a decoration of red sugar is added to symbolize the blood that flowed.
How it is made
The Beatine di Ghemme biscuits are made of flour, butter, sugar, eggs, milk, very little baking power and natural aromas. They are medium-big in size (30-40 g each) and are a beautiful golden brown, since they are brushed with egg yolk on the surface before baking. The ingredients are: 1,000 g wheat flour; 400 g sugar zucchero; 600 g butter burro; three eggs; half a glass of milk vanilla and rated lemon peel. Honey and salt are added as options. All the ingredients are blended and kneaded until all is well integrated and uniform.
It would be advisable to let the dough rest in the fridge for at least one hour. The dough is laid out with a thickness of a bit more than 0.5 cm, and with specific models, the shapes are cut and placed on the oven tray. The remainders can be re-kneaded to make new biscuits. Baking is done at 190°C for 15 minutes.
History
The Beatine di Ghemme biscuits trace back to the 19th century, when they were sold during the trade fair in memory of the Saint on her feast day, from the first Friday in May up to the next Sunday. According to tradition the pilgrims who went to Ghemme would buy the biscuits before entering the Church where the blessing rite was held, and consisted in lowering the bag of biscuits inside the Saint's tomb at the centre of the church, which contained the body of Panacea, until the time of the construction of the actual parish church.The operation was entrusted to some parish staff who received alms in return. The biscuits were thus blessed and brought home to be eaten by the family and offered to those who had not been able to pay a visit to Ghemme.
Panacea was born in 1368 in Quarona, about 30 km from Ghemme, where her parents, Lorenzo de Muzi and Maria Gambino, came from. Her mother's premature death pushed Lorenzo to remarry Margherita, a native of Locarno Sesia.
After the wedding, Panacea, who was always fervent in prayers and good deeds, started to suffer abuse from her stepmother, who made her work without pause, letting her guard the flock of sheep in the mountains, spin wool and gather firewood. As tradition goes, while Panacea was lost in prayer the angels would do her work for her. One evening in 1383, her stepmother, on not seeing her return with the flock which had returned home by itself, went to look for her on mount Tucri, and found her in prayer. Livid with anger she hit her violently and repeatedly with a stone and the distaff she used to weave with, and killed her on the spot. Realizing what she had done, the woman threw her body in the ravines close by. The bells of the nearby Church of St. John started to ring and attracted the population of Quarona and Panacea's body was found next to the log which burnt without consuming itself. Tradition says that only when the Bishop arrived were they able to lift her body and put it on a wagon to be brought to the village. When they reached a field, the owner refused burial and the calves pulled the wagon with Panacea up to Ghemme, stopping in the nearby parish Church of S. Maria where her mother lay, and was buried on the first Friday of May, 1383.
