are primarily those of Easter Sunday, the day on which Jesus rose from the dead, a day of special rejoicing for Christians, who rejoice too at reaching the end of the long Lenten fast. This time also marks the beginning of spring, the season of renewal, and a cause for general rejoicing. The concept of renewal/rebirth is responsible for the important role played by the egg in Easter celebrations, a role which no doubt antedates Christianity.
There are also special foods associated with other days in the Easter calendar (see Lent; pancake; fritter; carling), but these are mostly connected with fast day fare rather than with feasting.
In Europe, there is a general tradition, not confined to Christians, that Easter is the time to start eating the season's new lamb, which is just coming onto the market then. For Christians there is the added symbolic significance that Jesus is regarded as the lamb of God. In Britain, a leg, shoulder, or saddle is roasted at this time and served with new potatoes and mint sauce. For the French, a roast leg of lamb, the gigot pascal (pascal and the English paschal refer equally to the Jewish Passover and Christian Easter), is the traditional Easter Sunday lunch. In Italy, too, and Greece baby lamb or kid (see goat), plainly roasted, is a favourite Easter dish.
Easter breads, cakes, and biscuits are a major category of Easter foods, perhaps especially noticeable in the predominantly Roman Catholic countries of S. and C. Europe (and in E. Europe where the influence of the Greek and Russian Orthodox churches hold sway), but prominent too in N. Europe and in Christian countries or communities outside Europe. Traditional breads are laden with symbolism in their shapes, which may make reference to Christian faith—crosses, fish, and lambs—or be relics from pagan practices—hares, eggs, and the cylinder shapes of E. European breads. In general, they are not as rich as the Christmas breads (see Christmas foods), using less butter, sugar, and fruit, although eggs are freely used.
In England breads or cakes flavoured with bitter tansy juice used to be popular Easter foods, but are no longer made. Simnel cake has come to be regarded as an Easter speciality, although it was not always so. The most popular English Easter bread is the hot cross bun (see bun), the small spiced breads traditionally baked on Good Friday, and the only English breads to retain the cross, traditionally cut in rising dough ‘to let the devil fly out’, after the Reformation.
In Scandinavia coffee breads and cakes are baked in special Easter shapes. The Finns make an interesting Easter bread which they call Pääsiäisleipä. Based on a mixture of wheat and rye flour, enriched with cream, butter, eggs, raisins, and almonds, flavoured with cardamom and lemon zest, it is traditionally baked in a milking pail, giving a cylindrical loaf.
The most famous Russian Easter bread, kulich, also has a tall narrow shape. This shape is Slavic and of great antiquity; see baba; savarin. The kulich is based on a baba dough, with more sugar, plus additions of candied peel, almonds, raisins, and saffron. The bulging top is iced and decorated, usually with Cyrillic letters standing for ‘Christ is risen’. Traditionally the kulich is taken to be blessed at midnight mass on the eve of Easter Sunday. In some families it replaces bread for the entire Holy Week. It is served with paskha, a sweetened confection based on curd cheese. The Canadian historian Jo Marie Powers (1994) has explained with loving detail the rituals and symbolism surrounding Easter breads in the Canadian-Ukrainian community.
In Georgia there is choerek, enriched with sour cream, butter, and egg, flavoured with aniseed (often also with vanilla and mahlab, from black cherry kernels) and made into snail shapes or braided wreaths.
In Germany and Switzerland, Easter gives the bakers an opportunity to show off their skills in baking rich breads in elaborate plaits and other shapes. Some towns have specialities, such as the Bremener Osterklaben, a loaf similar to the Dresden Stollen. Other specifically Easter breads are Osterkarpfen (a dough fish with halved almonds representing scales); Eier im Nest (a yeast dough nest with coloured eggs in it); and Osterhase, the Easter hare, who is said to hide coloured eggs in the garden on the morning of Easter Sunday. Sarah Kelly (1985) suggests that many or all of these items may have migrated north from Greece or Italy. Italian influence also gives the Taube (dove—see below).
The Greek lambrópsomo, an almond-topped Greek Easter bread that breaks the Lenten fast, is rich in eggs and butter, two foods forbidden during Lent. They are shiny loaves with decorations of spring flowers, leaves, or buds shaped in dough. Red eggs, signifying both rebirth and the blood of Christ, are an important part of the decoration. Another festive bread, made at Easter and also for the New Year, braided and variously flavoured according to regional preferences, is tsoureki (see choerek); it too is topped with one or more red eggs. Other loaves are made in a cloverleaf shape said to symbolize the Trinity.
Symbolic eggs also occur in Italian, Corsican, and Portuguese Easter breads, indeed all over the place.
The Italian colomba (dove) is made of panettone dough baked in a vaguely dove-shaped tin and topped with candy sugar. Italian pignola bread, an enriched bread including pine nuts, sultanas, lemon zest, and candied orange peel, is made into rolls, coated with ground hazelnuts, and sprinkled with more pine nuts.
In contrast, the Castilian Spanish Easter bread, hornazo, is a large savoury loaf based on plain household bread dough, enriched with olive oil and bacon fat, and containing pieces of chorizo (see sausages of Spain and Portugal), other pork products, and hard-boiled eggs.
In France there is a special biscuit, called agneau pascal (Easter lamb), which is made in the shape of a recumbent lamb, with a meringue topping to represent the wool.
See also bistort; brioche; cassata; cheesecake; Cyprus; dock pudding; egg; flaounes; frumenty; Greece; ka'k; ma'amoul; marzipan; panettone; pizza; Romania; siphnopitta.
Laura Mason has written about several aspects of British food in books including Sugar Plums and Sherbet (1998), Farmhouse Cookery (2005), and Traditional Foods of Britain (1999), which she co-authored with Catherine Brown.
Cruickshank, Constance (1959), Lenten Fare and Food for Fridays, London: Faber.
Kelly, Sarah (1985), Festive Baking in Austria, Germany and Switzerland, London: Penguin.
Luard, Elisabeth (2001), Sacred Food: Cooking for Spiritual Nourishment, London: MQ Publications.
Powers, Jo Marie (1994), ‘Ukrainian-Canadian Breads: Shape, Symbolism and Spirituality’, in Walker (1994).
