With the shops full to bursting with Easter Eggs and online gifting companies (such as ourselves!) offering gifts and hampers as well, it can hardly have escaped anyone’s attention that Easter is almost here. It certainly won’t be news to our packing and despatch teams as they pack and label hampers ready for delivery before Easter!

However, what you’re less likely to be familiar with are the specific events in the week running up to Easter,  so this week we’ll try and provide a little background into the events of each day.

Today is Holy Monday, also known as Great and Holy Monday. Holy Monday precedes the commemoration of the Death and resurrection of Jesus and in Western Christianity the Gospel lesson describes the anointing of Jesus at Bethany. Few Protestant churches have special services for Holy Monday, which may go some way to explaining why it’s often overlooked outside the Church.

Bookmark this article >>

Hide Sites

We talked recently about what we’d be eating at Easter time and thanks to the feedback that we’ve received, we’ve learnt a little bit about what we had on the menu, as well as a few more unusual and international suggestions.

For example, we only had half the story of Hot Cross Buns which were eaten year round in pagan pre-Christian times. The bun represented the moon and the four quarters represented the four seasons. Christians took over this tradition and changed the meaning so that the cross represented the cross that Jesus died on.

Simnel cake is a rich fruit cake covered with a layer of marzipan, with 11 marzipan balls to represent the faithful disciples of Jesus. What we didn’t realise was that Simnel cakes were first made by servant girls and maids to take home to their mothers on Mothering Sunday.

As for international Easter cuisine, salty pretzels are traditionally eaten in Italy at Easter time. The Russians eat ‘blini’s', which are little pancakes topped with anchovies and a mixture of cream, soft cream, dried fruit and orange peel call ed ‘Paska’. The Greeks eat an Easter cake made with oranges, almonds and a spicy orange sauce poured over it.

Mouthwatering…

Bookmark this article >>

Hide Sites