Eggs, Ham and Lamb: A History of Easter Food

by Hanna Raskin, Posted Apr 1st 2010 @ 4:00PM

Hot Cross Buns, a symbol of Easter. Photo: Andrew B47, Flickr

One of the year's most festive meals features the same components that make up perhaps the most standard plate in the American repertoire: eggs, bread and pork – commonly recognized as the nation's breakfast triumvirate – are the defining ingredients of Easter celebrations the world over.

Of course, few holiday observers plan to serve up scrambled eggs, bacon and toast on Easter Sunday: Diners will instead indulge in stout pink hams, hot cross buns, sweet yeast cakes, currant biscuits, cream-filled chocolate eggs, smoked kielbasas and gaudily decorated hard boiled eggs, paying homage to traditions forged in medieval Europe. While Americans have modified many of their inherited menus, the essential elements have changed little since the first Christians devised their holiday meals.

The familiar dyed Easter egg, which annually rolls along the White House lawn and frustrates little girls armed with white wicker baskets, is a carryover from the Pagan holiday that preceded the Christian festival. The egg is a symbol of rebirth and rejuvenation, and references the return of spring as eloquently as it reminds Easter celebrants of the resurrection story. Unlike bread and pork, which aren't kosher for Passover, the egg figures into both Christian and Jewish springtime holidays.

But egg-shaped confections are unique to Easter, and – until just over a century ago – found almost only in France. A dazzled reporter for the New York Evangelist in 1862 chronicled the candy egg mania that seized Paris in the weeks before the holiday.

"Egg-shaped articles are to be had in every conceivable variety of material," the correspondent wrote. "One would think that the imperial eagle of France had summoned all the birds of air to come to Paris, build their nests in shop windows, and there deposit their eggs...here you have chocolate eggs full of cream where the yolk should be; there you have sugar eggs filled with liqueur."

With the introduction of machines to manufacture chocolate, candy became a fixture of Easter celebrations on both sides of the Atlantic. But sweets weren't a new addition to the holiday, which Brits had long marked by eating hot cross buns.

Food historians speculate the buns' linkage to Easter may predate their being embellished with crosses. The custom's most likely rooted in Tudor law, which banned the sale of spiced fruit buns except at burials, on Christmas and on Good Friday. Crosses were almost certainly being carved into the seasonal treats by the 1700s, when James Boswell mentioned them by name in his Life of Johnson. But other sources suggest Greeks and Romans also had a habit of crossing their buns; in 19th century Naples, museum goers could gaze upon two small cross buns salvaged from the ruins of Pompeii.

Alan Davidson believes the religious symbol harkens back to ancient blood offerings; "sacrificing" bread was apparently considered a more humane practice. "It is a curious history, this symbol of the Cross upon bread!," the New York Observer exclaimed in 1872. "In its origin, a heathen offering, clearly condemned by the word of God!"

While the hot cross bun was peculiar to the British Isles, Christians across Europe traditionally celebrated the holiday with bread products of their own: An eggy bread called kulich prevailed in Russia, anise bread was favored by Italians and babkas appeared on Polish tables.

Easter observers approached unanimity on entrée selection, though, with lamb or ham the featured dish at nearly every European feast. Lamb was probably selected to honor Christ, recognized by followers as the "lamb of God," but ham was a hit at spring festivals way back when most Europeans were Pagan. Ham fans believed the meat would bring them good fortune.

In early America, where pork was plentiful, the ham tradition was enthusiastically upheld. In 1895, a Harper's Bazaar reporter described an eastern shore delicacy known as "stuffed ham," in which a skinned ham was plumped with cabbage sprouts, stale bread cubes, pepper and parsley before baking.

"When brought upon the table, and its thin pink slices fall on the dish all veined with green hues, it is as pretty as a picture," the writer explained.

Home cooks in the 1930s found more sugary ways to doctor their hams, bathing them in ginger ale; marshmallows and lemon juice; pineapples and pickle brine; pears and honey and cinnamon applesauce. The exact recipe was irrelevant, counseled the Chicago Tribune's Mary Meade in 1939.

"The Easter ham holds the same place of honor on the dinner table that milady's hat does in the Easter Parade," Meade explained. "Like the hat, the ham is something you can hardly do without."

Easter bonnets, of course, have been on the wane for decades. But while Americans today may pluck inspiration from various culinary traditions, eggs, bread and the Easter ham remain the holiday's central ingredients.

Filed Under: Holidays, Food History, Features
Tags: chocolate bunnies, chocolate eggs, easter, easter eggs, Easter meals, featured, hot cross buns

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Reader comments (Page 2 of 2)

4-04-2010 @4:01PM KathyH said... Too Funny

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4-05-2010 @2:51PM meg said... Not so Eric. It was to annoy Dave.

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4-04-2010 @10:30AM Jim said... Yeah, I don't care for ham either; it's way too salty, for one thing, and for another, it reminds me of the racist fat asses who took my dad in and raised him (which sounds noble, until you realize that it was simply a way for them to acquire an indentured servant and whipping boy / chore boy) after his mother died in the TB epidemic back in the 40's, and they were ALWAYS eating ham! Even when there wasn't anything cooking in that house, it constantly smelled like ham in there. And I know that all that ham is a large part of the reason that they were all fat, gross, mean, and ugly. After being married to an Italian-Greek, I now look forward to my roasted leg of lamb on this day and that is the only meat I now associate with Easter. Ham is no longer in my diet, thank God!
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4-04-2010 @10:46AM Darlene said... When growing up, our family always had ham on Easter and I remember my Dad saying it was because we were Christians, not Jews. My Dad remembered the days when the Jewish people claimed they were abused by the Germans. We learned that over the years, fables were created as an attempt to make people feel sorry for them such as the story of Moses splitting the sea, that they were inslaved by the Egyptians etc.
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4-04-2010 @10:54AM Anton said...
Used to be no meat on Fridays, for years now we have only go meatless on Good Friday, fish night for our family since I can remember. Chickens are scavengers too, they will eat anything. As for the Bible, the latest version is the king James. I have reprinted Bibles from before the king James. Books that were not banned by the church elders, like Adam and his first wife Lillith. I knew that the "men" that control what goes into the Bible would never allow an equal to man or Adam so God created Eve to be subservient and not equal. Same with Thecla and her women's rights movement, the "elders" did not like that message. The Catholic Church ran Christianity for over 1000 years and controlled what you read and would tell the congregation stories from the Bible because of illiteracy. The along came Martin Luther who founded Lutheranism and from there we went from one Catholic church to other denominations of Christianity, Methodist, Baptist, Episcopalian, etc.
And you could have your own Bible to read, freedom to form your own thoughts on the Bible.
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4-05-2010 @10:29PM pepap7 said... First off yes there are a lot of pagan influences in certain Christian holidays such as easter eggs , eating ham , even the christmas tree etc and dec 25 roman saturnelia . All these things are not in the bible nor are we commanded to eat pork.. but rather lamb . As a Greek and the" new testament was written in Greek " the holiday is not called easter ..as that is a pagan name... but rather PASCHA ..which comes from the hebrew word Pesach or Passover ..as Christ is our passover lamb sacrificed for us.. and of course he was crucified on the jewish passover . These are historical facts and not a joke some say what does it matter. who cares .. it does if you live in truth you see the light if you are an ignorant person who is decieved and part of the masses who dont care then you are decieved and" in vain you worship Jesus" .Christ defeated death and the devil but the deciever infiltrated the church since he figured what other way can i corrupt the truth , therby introducing pagan holidays and customs twisting true apostolic Christianity with xmas trees, eggs misltoe, bunnys eating pork etc , worshiping on the day of the sun instead of the sabbath as commanded forever by God as sign between him and his people .Folks Wake up , read study and search these things .Do google on it and you will see .
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4-04-2010 @11:13AM tony said... Pork is good for u, dave...look here http://pork.impello.com/health_nutrition/health_nutrition_you/01.php
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4-04-2010 @11:25AM sally said... Ham is nasty, its like eating pure salt.
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4-04-2010 @11:36AM Elliott said... Pretty much all big holidays that people celebrate like Easter, Halloween, Christmas, etc, are founded on Pagan celebrations. It always makes me wonder because Christianity has nothing to do with any of them, aside from the fact of stealing them, anyway. And then of course mass marketing pushes to churn out zillions of unneeded items.
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4-04-2010 @11:57AM dolphie said... dear vickie, first of all i am a vegeterian. meat is not linked to diabetes. the root cause of this disease is sugar consumption. if you dont like ham dont eat it but watch your sugar intake or you could become diabetic as well.
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4-04-2010 @12:45PM Marilyn said... Each to his own. Everyone celebrates in their own way. Easter to me is a special time for renewal, and the glory of Christ's resurrection. It doesn't matter how you celebrate or what you eat for dinner. It's whats in your heart. Hey, the idea of filet mignon sounds great. Everybody lighten up and enjoy your day!
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