Celebrate Easter....with a Varied Menu ~ Good Food Corner

No matter how you celebrate Easter it is a special time of year to get together with family and friends and celebrate a new beginning. Did you know that the holiday celebrations have their roots in pagan religion? This tradition particularly comes from the old European festival of “Ostara” or “Eostre” that celebrated the death of long and cold winter months and the birth of Spring and looked forward to the fertile months of summer. Its strongest association is with the egg...a symbol of birth and regeneration. Easter is a celebration of Spring and rebirth in more ways than one. As a child I remember the joy of receiving a chocolate Easter egg from Reid's Candy Store in my home town. They no longer make the eggs but they are still in business as a tribute to the past. We celebrated by going to church, staging Easter Egg hunts, and of course eating delicious foods shared with those near and dear to our heart.

The roast lamb dinner that many of us savour on Easter Sunday goes back earlier than Easter to the first Passover. The sacrificial lamb was roasted and eaten, together with unleavened bread and bitter herbs in hopes that the angel of God would pass over their homes and bring no harm. Christians often refer to Jesus as The Lamb of God. All traditions seem to merge on this holiest of weekends.

In North America, ham is also a traditional Easter food. In the early days, meat was slaughtered in the fall. With no refrigeration the fresh pork that wasn't consumed during the winter months before Lent was cured for Spring. The curing process was lengthy, and the first hams were ready around the time that Easter rolled around. Therefore, ham was a natural choice for the celebratory Easter dinner as a sign of a new season and new beginnings.

As with all festivals food plays an important part in Easter celebrations. Ham and lamb are traditional foods served for Easter dinner but we have been known to have a delicious roast beef, whole salmon or turkey (if we don't still have leftovers in the freezer after the Christmas holidays). The days are longer and our markets are beginning to burst at the seams with the colours of the bountiful fruits and vegetables of the season. For those who are lucky enough to live near a farmers market as I am, we would be hard pressed not to be aware of which fruits are at the peak of their season.. Pods of fresh peas and stalks of beautifully green asparagus will cook beautifully in a sauce of lemon zest, butter and mint. This is the time to enjoy fresh rhubarb, sweet garden peas and furled fiddleheads . It is the season for escarole and a wide variety of lettuce handplucked from the garden for green salads. The delightful fragrance of chives, mint, chervil and tarragon fill the air to season your dishes. All of these tastes of Spring are bursting from our gardens, forests, markets and window boxes and will be easy to incorporate into our holiday menu. Set your table with your prettiest china, make sure you have tiny spring bouquets at each place setting, and enjoy your time together with your family and friends.

Here are some suggestions to change up your Easter menu....