Food during Easter around the world - by Karen Herzog
If your family is Polish and keeps the traditions of Poland, you may serve kielbasa, considered indicative of God's favor and generosity, in addition to ham, a symbol of joy and abundance.The Greeks and Portuguese serve round, flat loaves marked with a cross and decorated with Easter eggs. Syrian and Jordanian Christians have honey pastries. After an Easter dinner showcasing lamb, Germans may eat lamb-shaped cake. Europeans generally enjoy sweet breads, cakes, cookies and chocolate rabbits to end the Lenten period of traditional abstinence. The French are known for gorgeous chocolate bunnies, and also for chocolate fish. The poisson d'avril isn't directly related to Easter but is part of the Easter season, starting April 1, when children use a paper version to play April Fools' tricks, according to www.chocolateatlas.com.
Dessert for Easter doesn't have to be a pastry or candy. One of the best-known Lent and Easter desserts in Mexico is a Mexican bread pudding called capirotada. It usually consists of toasted French bread, cheese, milk, butter, peanuts and raisins. It is soaked in syrup that includes water, brown sugar, cinnamon and a variety of other ingredients. Easter for Greek families would not be complete without hard-boiled eggs, traditionally painted red on Holy Thursday. The red eggs signify the blood of Christ, and some are baked into twisted sweet-bread loaves or distributed on Easter.
You also may display on your Easter table red beet horseradish (symbolic of the bitter passion of Christ), lamb-shaped butter (a reminder of Christ's goodness), eggs (symbolic of the Resurrection) and babka, a sweet bread symbolic of Jesus, "the bread of life." You won't forget the salt, regarded as a necessary element of life.
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