(image from www.anapnoes.gr)
Last week I asked you, What are you doing for Passover & Easter?
I thought you’d enjoy reading a couple of replies:
From a Catholic husband:
We’re going to a Seder on Saturday and, err, cooking Easter brunch on Sunday.
Easter brunch will include French toast casserole made with (what else) challah made on Saturday. (It’s not a day of rest for me.)
I’m aiming for a religious Passover and Easter – and just as importantly, for an inclusive seder and brunch.
Other observations:
Our Catholic Relief Services “rice bowl” (alms) box for Lent isn’t that different from a JWS tzedakah box.
I swear gelt is made from the same bad chocolate as cheap Easter bunnies 🙂
From a Jewish wife:
We’re doing a smidge of both. Well, lots of Pesach and a smidge of Easter. We’re going to two Seders at friends’ houses and I’ll go to services both days. Then we’re having a chill lunch with a few friends and my mom after services on Sunday. Then we’re going to my mom’s for an Easter dinner, since it’s important to her. She usually gives my sister and me Easter baskets. I asked her not to put candy in it though, because it’s too hard with kashrut for Pesach. I’ll go and eat fresh kosher meat or veggies at her house on Pesach even though I normally don’t eat anything from a kitchen that hasn’t nullified chametz, but not processed candy. And as always, my non-Jewish hubby did nearly all of our cleaning for Pesach. (We put away chametz and sell it but don’t really kasher yet).
Sharing Customs
You’ll note that in the first case, Easter Brunch will include a casserole made with challah. In the second, the daughter of a non-Jewish mother will graciously accept an Easter basket minus the non-kosher candy.
One of the most common traditions to share is our cuisine, our foods. A friend of mine who began practicing Kashrut after growing up in the south and eating plenty of pork went on a long series of experiments to recreate the flavor she was missing. Turned out to be most easily reproduced using a product you all know, Liquid Smoke.
Dying Easter eggs is often seen as a fun, crafty activity that parents who don’t observe the religious holiday still want to do with their kids. A couple years ago a woman wrote me that her daughter had decided to dye eggs to represent each of the 10 Plagues and have them on the Seder table. This year another friend told me that he dyes eggs with his daughter but puts Jewish symbols – star of David, Chai, Torah scroll – on the eggs. Recently another friend remarked that the Jewish practice of celebrating the end of Passover by baking an egg into a round loaf of bread is similar to the Christian practice of baking eggs into Easter breads.
Are there foods that you have adapted from another culture or tradition to fit into your Jewish practices? Please tell me about them. I think we should share these ideas.
Next Jewish Holiday: Yom Hashoah
No sooner does Passover end than the next holiday is upon us. It is Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day. So take a deep breath and plunge on!