“I’ve been writing about food since the 1960s and teaching cooking for 40 years,” said Sandra Scalise Juneau, local food connoisseur, author and St. Joseph altar teacher.

“One of the things I love about the St. Joseph altar is that each one is totally unique. It’s an expression of art and love,” she said.

Instrumental in helping to start the tradition at many sites, Juneau has worked this year at the altar at St. Anselm and the one at Anne Dale Jewelers. An aficionado of the genre, Juneau said the best part of the altars, besides the religious symbolism and meaning, is they build communities. The St. Joseph Altar tradition for her is meaningful, sacred. “The altar brings people together in a loving way.”

Sandra Scalise Juneau

“The group at St. Anselm, they started off years ago and just keep going every year,” she said. “They have a group that meets regularly throughout the year and it all started with the St. Joseph altar. People prepare their altars throughout the year and give their best in working together to honor St. Joseph. It’s more about the love than the labor.”

Juneau has an altar on permanent display at the Food and Beverage Museum in New Orleans and a book on the subject in the works.

“As a child, I was a saint at one of my grandmother’s altars. It was quite a memorable experience for me,” She said.

In the research she has done, the St. Joseph tradition started as a result of a famine in Sicily in the 13th or 14th century. At the time, Sicily was the breadbasket of Europe, she said. Thee cattle were starving and dying from the famine. The people prayed to St. Joseph for protection and a crop grew — a crop of fava beans.

The bean was used as fodder for cattle and was rich in protein. It became the sustaining crop. The people said, “If we can survive this, we’ll honor St. Joseph with a beautiful feast on his feast day.”

The altar is unique to some regional town in Sicily an each is totally different as an expression of art.

Juneau said that in the fertile soil of Louisiana, the tradition has grown and flourished even more, even beyond the borders of Louisiana. She was asked in the 1960s to display an altar in New York. “It was an eye opener. The altar touches people all over,” she said.

Her mission in life, she said, is to build awareness by teaching classes, displaying altars, writing about them.

The pupo con L’loda, “puppet with eggs” contains a hard boiled egg, dyed and covered in an overlay of dough shaped to look like a chicken or peacock. It is baked, but not meant to be eaten. This traditional part of the altar was included because at one time the eating of eggs was not allowed during Lent. Instead, the object, a symbol of rebirth, became a toy for the children.

A former banker, she also loves freelance writing and writing poetry aside from spreading her love of cooking. For many years she wrote a column called “bonne bouchee” or good little mouthfuls, about seasonal food and culture.

She and her husband Rolland will soon be celebrating their 50th anniversary with their three children, Terese Fury of Ponchatoula, Jeanne Juneau of Washington and Marc Juneau of New Orleans. They also have five grandchildren.�