[ad_1]
“Who has the strongest egg?”
Sylvie Saab
My mom usually dyes the eggs using the skin of an onion. They are usually a dark brown or maroon color, if you have used a purple onion. Then he presents them on a tray and we choose an egg, everyone chooses an egg, and we hold it in our hand and crush it against someone else’s egg. Usually one of those eggs will break, if yours doesn’t break, go ahead with anyone else’s egg that hasn’t been broken until there’s a winner.
No meaning is attached to it. There are many jokes. In the beginning, when you choose your egg, there is a bit of competition. People who try to choose the egg that has the strongest shell. Who has the strongest egg?
It is a Lebanese tradition. It could have meant something once, but now it’s just a competition.
It’s fun. Kids love it. We did it regardless of having children. We did it before procreating. You eat the eggs afterwards, so there is a meal that follows. It is something that I remember from my childhood, it has always been what marks Easter.
It is absolutely important to maintain that connection with my Lebanese.
Now the children are a bit older, if I don’t do it with the extended family, I will do it with my immediate family.
It is a relatively easy tradition that you can continue to maintain. It is something fun that everyone can participate in, unlike the midnight mass. It’s nice to be able to pass it on.
“A Maundy Thursday service is often very quiet, very quiet”
Kate lyons (Pacific Editor)
For many Christians, Easter is the most significant time on the religious calendar. For me, the most sacred, deepest moment of this sacred and profound weekend comes on Holy Thursday. It is a moment of stillness and tranquility before the weekend chaos begins and commemorates that moment of stillness before the storm of the events of the first Passover when Jesus ate his last supper with his disciples, washed their feet, and then He went to the Garden of Gethsemane and prayed in anguish, fearing the death that he knew awaited him the next day.
The service on Holy Thursday is usually very quiet, very quiet. There are readings, songs performed while people sit and reflect, candles that slowly go out one by one. Its simplicity and tranquility give me space each year to reflect on the suffering that is at the heart of Christian history, and to face and mourn those headaches that I could have avoided or drowned out for the rest of the year. I rarely leave a Maundy Thursday service without crying.
The word “Maundy” comes from the Latin word for “command.” It refers to the last and most important commandment of Jesus to his followers: Love one another as I have loved you. Holy Thursday redirects me every year, reminds me that the heart of faith that I have is, or should be, love.
“I will continue that tradition until I am no longer here.”
Shirley campbell
Pickled fish is a South African tradition. That tradition has stuck with me. We have just spent 30 years in Australia this January; We arrived on Jan 10, 1991. I still make my pickled fish, and we usually do it with hot cross buns.
On Good Friday we do not eat meat, and that is religious. Every South African I know who lives in Australia, they all prepare pickled fish for Good Friday.
In South Africa that’s all we had on Good Friday. Breakfast was usually a hot cross bun. Lunch consisted of pickled fish and buns. Dinner consisted of pickled fish and buns. When we got to Australia my kids hated pickled fish. I still do it because I have some Australian friends who love it. But that’s when I started making the crab and prawn curry, which everyone loves.
My son cooks it too. He’s cooking curries for his wife’s family. So my kids will continue the tradition of crab and prawn curry while pickled fish, I don’t think they will. Being 70 years old, you continue with the tradition that you grew up with. It is important to me and my husband loves it too. I will continue that tradition until I am no longer here.
“We always get together for an Easter lunch. Always the same place, the same menu, the same friends ”.
Kiaran Kirk and Julie Brooke
I [Kiaran] I describe myself as a tragic bread. Whenever I travel I look for the best artisan bakery in that city. I choose my hotel on that basis.
When [our daughter] Rosie had her third year clinical placement, she was in Albury, so I did what I always do, and found out where the best bakery is. What emerged in Albury was a woman calling herself the bicycle baker. For a baker, the busiest time of year is this week. For the last three years we have been going to help.
Two years ago we were with The Bicycle Baker and had a blind hot crossbread tasting. They were from different cities and countries and I got seven out of seven.
We have friends with children the same age as ours and we always get together for an Easter lunch. We have been doing it for over 20 years. Always the same place, always the same menu, the same friends. Always roast lamb, lemon meringue pie, hot cross pudding. We bring in bottles of wine from the 1980s and sit and reflect on what we were doing in the wine’s origin years in particular.
