Here’s Why These Foods Are Found on Easter Tables
American celebrations of Easter don’t only include egg hunts and sunrise church services. They also include Easter meals.
Lamb, pork, eggs, Easter bread – these are some of the foods that are often found on Easter dining tables. From the holiday’s beginnings, extravagant meals were a hallmark.
Candace Buckner, assistant professor of religion and culture at Virginia Tech, shares the history of traditional Easter foods and how they joined American holiday tables.
Eggs
The egg comes from the Pagan belief that eggs represent birth and new life. Eggs were colored to be used as decoration for church altars and as gifts to celebrate spring.
Early Christians also saw symbolism in eggs and associated them with life, fertility, and abundance. They were seen as luxuries, though consumption of them had to be minimized during Lent. In the Middle Ages, consumption of eggs, meat, and dairy products was forbidden during Lent, especially the week before Easter.
“Fat Tuesday soon arose as the day before the beginning of Lent in which the consumption of as much dairy and eggs as possible was encouraged,” Buckner said. “Then, the oversupply of eggs produced during Lent was boiled, shelved, and preserved, and marked with special colors derived from vegetable dyes to identify them by freshness.”
Colored eggs were also included on Easter tables.
“Today, many Orthodox Christians still follow the prohibition of eggs during Lent,” Buckner said. “They paint Easter eggs red to symbolize the shedding of the blood of Christ and have their eggs blessed by priests as part of Easter celebrations.”
Today, the egg is not only a religious symbol of Easter. It represents secular celebrations, such as the story of the Easter bunny who delivers eggs in baskets to children.
Lamb
Lamb dishes were an original staple of early Orthodox celebrations of Easter. The food traces back to the New Testament’s description of Jesus and his last week on Earth, which was during Passover.
“Passover traditionally includes commemoration of the plague upon the firstborn in Egypt and the marking of the door lintels with lamb’s blood,” Buckner said. “Christians pick up on the symbolism, coupled with the new symbolism of Jesus as the lamb of God and sacrifice.”
Pork
The consumption of pork is a Medieval European tradition, and it traveled to Western cultures as pigs were slaughtered in the fall, cured through winter, and served in the spring.
Pork’s availability and easy storage made it the most readily available meat at this point in the year.
“People raided Medieval pantries to celebrate the end of winter by making flavorful pork dishes, usually baked or braised pork with lots of wine, easily preserved root vegetables, and herbs like garlic,” Buckner said.
Easter bread
Easter bread, also known as Pane di Pasqua, is believed to have originated in Northern Italy. It is a sweet bread woven into a braid and nestled with hard boiled eggs, colored sprinkles, and topped with an egg wash.
Buckner said it likely became popular during the Renaissance period.
“It may have been borrowed from Jewish populations in Italy who baked hamantaschen, a triangle-shaped pastry with an egg, for the holiday of Purim,” Buckner said
Purim celebrated the gift of God and the preservation and continuation of life, which mirrors the vitality of the spring season, she said.
Eventually, immigrants brought these food traditions with them when they migrated to the United States.
About Buckner
Candace Buckner, an assistant professor of religion and culture, researches the biographies of early Christian saints, especially those composed between the 4th and 8th centuries. She asks how these texts reveal aspects of ancient culture, including ancient perceptions of space, race, ethnicity, and disability. Her recent courses center on the perception of bodies in the ancient world and the importance of the holy man in early Christian thought.
The post Here’s Why These Foods Are Found on Easter Tables originally appeared in Virginia Tech News.
