I am going for ease this year with my springtime celebrations. All I really want is for family and friends to come together and for the days to become longer, warmer and generally more relaxed. I leave it to the kids to pick and choose the food traditions to follow, and there, unsurprisingly, it’s all very predictable: hot cross buns and chocolate. Chocolate in any shape or form, huge amounts of it and preferably egglike.
Failing to rein this in, I will turn to the oven and produce something to even things out a little: a tray of roasted vegetables, a grilled side of fish or a whole shoulder of lamb that has been cooking for hours to perfect tenderness. Alongside, I’ll serve buttery rice with white beans stirred through and a big leafy salad with a citrusy dressing.
Recipe: Slow-Roasted Lamb With Grapes
Nontraditional, eclectic and pragmatic as my Easter will be, I am always eager to see what’s going on around other tables, with different families, in neighboring countries. In particular, I think about all the ways in which eggs, that ultimate symbol of new life, are put to use. In Lebanon, for instance, and in Ukraine as well, tradition dictates that they are dyed a dark brown or maroon, using the skin of a brown or red onion.
Eggs can also be painted, once blown free of their white and yolk, before being hung from a string to look pretty. The tradition is said to have started when eggs were being abstained from during Lent yet still being produced by all the hens who didn’t get the memo to stop production.
Once the fast is broken, and the eggs are eaten, I love seeing the ways they are used in all sorts of sweet and savory pastries, bread, pies and other dishes. In Spain, the mona de pascua cake, originating from Catalonia, is bread braided into the shape of a basket or large doughnut, which is then topped or filled with as many brightly colored eggs and other decorations as can be held. In Greece, an egg-enriched bread called tsoureki is made from individual strands of dough braided together.
Savory versions are also popular, like the Italian torta pasqualina, which I’ve made before at Easter. Packed full of seasonal greens, the pie often holds suspended in its filling a number of hard-boiled and then sliced-in-half eggs, ready and waiting to be showcased with every part of the pie cut open. The Greek dish spanakopita is similar, using the greens that have arrived aplenty and then held together by whisked-up eggs and grated cheese.
If an egg is the ultimate symbol of new life, then bread also holds such promise. Bread is, universally, for sharing and eating, but in different countries, tradition can affect the making and the baking of the bread as much as the process of breaking, sharing and eating. In Ukraine, for example, the way in which it’s baked carries with it much significance. Paska, the national sweet bread, is baked on the Thursday before Easter. All windows must be closed and not a bad word can be said in the kitchen for the duration of the baking. If the dough rises well, and the paska is good, then signs for the year ahead are auspicious. Here’s to that.
If an egg is the ultimate symbol of new life, then bread also holds such promise.
And on it goes. In Spain, for example, slices of slightly stale bread are soaked in milk, sugar and spices overnight, before being dipped in egg and fried in olive oil until crispy and golden brown. They’re called torrijas, an indulgence that brings together bread and eggs in some dialed-up French-toast dream. In Italy, there’s colomba di pasqa (“Easter dove”), kneaded together into a wonderful centerpiece. Egg-rich, this bread is a bit like panettone and reminiscent of the hot cross buns many in Britain and the United States are slathering with quickly melting butter. Dough is braided across Poland too, where święconka (“the blessed Easter basket”) is filled with various items including more bread, eggs, sweet yeasted cake, horseradish and butter. In Sicily, dough is worked carefully into rings, crowns or baskets, pupa cu l’ova, which are then carried to church on Sunday.
Bread and eggs: the staples of everyday life for so many yet, at this time of the year, imbued with such new life and significance. After the restraint of Lent, their abundance is celebrated, commemorated and decorated. As I reach for my tray of slow-cooked lamb, willing the sun to break through, I smile thinking of all the preparations underway, all over, and all the excitement that no longer needs to be contained.
Yotam Ottolenghi is a writer and the chef-owner of the Ottolenghi restaurants, Nopi and Rovi, in London. He is an Eat columnist for The New York Times Magazine and writes a weekly column for The Guardian’s Feast Magazine.
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