Hot Cross Buns

by Andrew Barrow, Posted Apr 14th 2006 @ 2:34PM

A Hot Cross Bun has been hung in the window of the Widow's Son in London's Docklands every Good Friday since the early 19th century.

The story goes that the collection commemorates a poor widow who originally lived on the site now occupied by the pub. Every Good Friday she baked a Hot Cross Bun in expectation that he son, a sailor, would return home. He never did. When the pub was built one of the terms of the lease was that a sailor should hang a bun each year in memory of the widow's devotion.

Hot Cross Buns are a relic of the pre-Christian era, the church taking pagen rites and adapting them. They are descendents of small cakes made in celebration of spring and the goddess Eostre. Both the Greeks and Romans had similar spring cakes. Their cross was a symbol of the sun, a circle bisected by two right angle lines. This cut the bun into four quarters representing the four seasons.

[Photo Andrew Barrow]

Filed Under: Food Porn, Food Oddities, Feast Your Eyes
Tags: british isles, easter, easter buns, EasterBuns, food and drink, food porn, FoodAndDrink, hot cross buns, HotCrossBuns, oddities, widow's son pub, Widow'sSonPub

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Reader comments (Page 1 of 1)

4-15-2006 @4:09AM Jim In Holland said... Oddly enough I heard a different version many years ago when I lived in Banbury. The round shape of the bun and cross on top is meant to represent the round stone that blocked Jesus' grave.

Banbury Cross, deepinthehearta Oxforshire, was a famous stopping place centuries ago - a decent-sized town to stop at, you'd come up from Oxford through it to go to Stratford-upon-Avon. Pilgrims would buy hot cross buns up on a shop a few dozen meters from the top of the high street, near the cross, for their journey. Back in 1980 when I was there last, they proclaimed to have been making these since the 1500s or so...

Not sure how true it is, but it make a great story - especially this Easter week.
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