The origins of All Souls' Day in European folklore and folk belief are related to customs of ancestor veneration practiced worldwide, such as the Chinese Ghost Festival or the Latin American Day of the Dead. In Italy, broad beans are traditionally sown on November 2, All Souls Day. Broad beans were related to the dead according to ancient Greeks and Romans, because they make people fart. The stinking gases coming from a hole opposed to the mouth are typical of putrefaction and, moreover, the dead do things in the reverse order. Small cakes made in the shape of broad beans (though not out of them) are known as Fave dei Morti or Beans of the Dead. In ancient Greece and Rome, beans were used as a food for the dead, such as during the annual Lemuria festival. In Roman religion, the Lemuralia or Lemuria was a feast during which the ancient Romans performed rites to exorcise the malevolent and fearful ghosts of the dead from their homes. The unwholesome spectres of the restless dead, the lemures or larvae were propitiated with offerings of beans. On those days, the Vestals would prepare sacred mola salsa (salt cake) from the first ears of wheat of the season. In the Julian calendar the three days of the feast were 9, 11, and 13 May. According to cultural historians, this ancient custom was Christianized in the feast of All Saints' Day, established in Rome first on May 13, in order to de-paganize the Roman Lemuria. In the eighth century, as the popular observance of the Lemuria had faded over time, the feast of All Saints was shifted to November 1, coinciding with the similar Celtic propitiation of the spirits at Samhain. Pope Gregory III (731–741) fixed the anniversary, also in competition with the Greek Orthodox Church in Byzantium, where the Christian feast had originated. According to the traditional culture of many Italian localities, the night of the Day of the Dead the spirits of the defunct ones would return from the Other world making processions through the streets of the village. In some zones (those of the Romanized Celts of Northern Italy), as it happens in occasion of the festivity of Halloween, it was tradition to dig up and carve pumpkins and then put a candle inside to use them as lanterns. While this tradition faded away, it has recently been substituted by the globalized Halloween. The Fave dei Morti (Beans of the dead or sweet beans) are small almond cakes, egg-shaped and flattened, sprinkled with powdered sugar; they look like a macaroon, but have greater consistency (Emilia-Romagna, Lazio, Lombardy, Marche and Umbria). Different, though always based on almond, are the Beans of the Dead common all over North Eastern Italy.They are of three colors (cream , brown and pink) and range from crunchy to soft. The Bones of the Dead are oblong-shaped biscuits (Veneto), sometimes covered in chocolate (Sicily). Thank you for your kind comments.