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A simnel cake decorated with Easter chicks and marzipan balls |
Egged on to look for the best of Easter
While many leave town for a short break, the rest of us can feast on traditional food and drink
ALTHOUGH very early this year, Easter usually heralds the establishment of the spring season, a time when the default winter cold has begun to weaken and lashing rain has eased to a gentle drizzle.
For numerous generations, Easter has offered the perfect excuse to eat and drink and to relegate the hard winter months to memory.
Man, woman or child, Easter has something for everyone. Religious belief is not a barrier to participation. Many of the foods and customs enjoyed at this festival are older than Christianity – some are the fruits of non-Christian cultures.
The word Easter comes to us from our Pagan ancestors. The roast lamb dinner – an Easter tradition – has its origins in the Jewish Passover.
Hot-cross buns date back to the Saxon invader, while the Easter bunny is an ancient worldwide fertility symbol.
The people of the Middle East revered the egg – a dead object that splits to reveal a living being.
In the United States, ham is the traditional Easter food. Pork cured in the autumn reaches maturity in the spring, making it the natural choice for Easter celebrations. The Chinese too are masters at meat conservation. The hams of the Yunnan and Hunan regions are renowned and will make a great Easter repast – if you can find one.
The Irish also love eating the pig. Bacon and cabbage outranks Irish Stew as the Irish national dish and is a good choice for Easter dinner.
During the Dark Ages Irish monks vied with Rome to lead the Christian church. The dating of Easter became the battleground, with Rome emerging the winner. Since this time most western Christians – Catholic and Protestant – follow the Roman formula, which is based on a Pagan lunar calendar.
Easter falls on the Sunday after the first full moon following the spring equinox. This year the equinox occurs on March 20, the full moon on the 21st and Easter Sunday on the 23rd. The latest possible date for Easter is April 25.
The Greeks hold Easter in the highest regard. It is their Christmas and New Year rolled into one. The traditional fast is broken by a mammoth midnight feast with lamb or perhaps suckling pig at its centre. Several local Greek and Cypriot restaurants will open at midnight on the Orthodox Easter Sunday. Not this coming Sunday. The Orthodox church has its own method of dating Easter – this year April 27 is the big Sunday.
For Poles too, Easter is a major festival, rivalling Christmas for the elaborateness of the celebrations. On Saturday many local Poles will head for church, carrying small baskets stuffed with eggs, hams, horseradish, sausages, condiments and tiny sugar lambs. Sunday morning witnesses a lavish table, laid for a substantial feast of cold meats, salads, such as cwikla – a combination of horseradish and beetroot – and cakes.
For those who fancy some real soul food, the local Christian churches have a surfeit of services all guaranteed to feed the spirit.
This Friday St Martins Church, Vicars Road Gospel Oak, one of Simon Jenkins’s hundred best churches, offers hot-cross buns and a children’s workshop dedicated to making a cross of flowers. At 10.30am on Easter Sunday, egg hunting is combined with the usual services.
St George and All Saints, Crayford Road, Tufnell Park, also offers an egg hunt, with its 11am family Sunday service. Whereas at 10.15am the same day, choral morning prayers will take place at the beautiful Palladian church, St Giles in the Fields, 60 St Giles High St, Holborn.
For most, it is the four guaranteed days off work that renders Easter special. Countless numbers from this area will jet away, or drive off to a supposedly better place. The savvy remainder will find the locality less crowded. Hundreds of shops will open throughout the holiday and the new generation of resurgent shopping streets will hum with activity.
On offer will be traditional Easter fare; hot-cross buns, folar bread and simnel cake from independent bakeries and Portuguese shops. All kinds of Easter eggs and other seasonal produce will be on sale at a multitude of ethnic delicatessens and natural food shops. Numerous restaurants and cafés will propose a special Easter menu.
Although many of the independent butchers will close most days over the holiday, the halal butchers will be open throughout, offering fresh and bloodless meat. At Easter, in the market place, every day is a good day. |
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