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Chocolate eggs and such
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The Easter season begins with Ash Wednesday (marking the beginning of Lent) and culminates on Easter Sunday, although it continues up through Easter Monday.
In addition to the tradition of eating lamb, we now have the custom of Easter Eggs, which used to be blessed before being presented as gifts. Not until relatively recently, around the sixteenth century, did people start hiding a surprise inside the eggs.
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It's no coincidence that eggs have been associated with Easter as they are associated with all sorts of creation myths going back to pre-Christian times when, for example, people believed that the heavens and earth were two "halves of the same egg". Following the advent of Christianity, this aspect was augmented by yet another symbolic dimension as the egg came to be associated with rebirth and life, an association that runs parallel to another classic symbol of Easter, the lamb. Over the centuries, thanks to its rich array of mystical and metaphysical attributes, the egg has becomes the focus of all sorts of traditions all over the world. In one particular culture they are even buried in huge amounts beneath the foundations of homes that are under construction in order to protect the inhabitants from negative influences.
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THE TEMPTATION OF CHOCOLATE |
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Oddly enough, chocolate eggs are only the most recent manifestation of this long and fascinating story, although they are probably one of the most cherished expressions. They are made by using special molds into which melted chocolate is poured. When it has cooled, out pops a perfect half egg. The two halves then need to be joined and Bob's your uncle. The outside is often adorned with colorful sugar-frosting decorations or little objects made from wafers or marzipan, while the inside is used to hide a surprise, often more highly prized by children that the sweet case that conceals it. Once the holiday has passed, we can conserve the delicious Easter-egg chocolate by putting it in the freezer and eating a little bit at a time over the course of the following weeks. Our only advice here is to be sure and divide it up by type, trying to avoid mixing milk chocolate with dark chocolate. We can use these "sweet leftovers" to prepare exquisite mousses or easy snack treats made with puffed rice that only take a jiffy to prepare. All you have to do is put the chocolate in the microwave and add the puffed rice as soon as it melts. Pour the mixture into a large biscuit sheet that has been previously covered with baking paper and let the chocolate cool and harden. The kids will love being able to continue enjoying their Easter egg chocolate in a new and crunchy guise.
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Toward the end of the 1800's the world was treated to whole new kind of Easter egg like nothing that had ever been seen before. They were made by a jeweler named Fabergé, whose skills had been enlisted by none other than Czar Alexander. All together, Fabergé turned out around fifty of these sumptuously adorned egg-shaped masterpieces destined to delight the Czarina. But we don't have to go to such luxurious lengths because there are all sorts of other examples from across the world of decorated eggs (real ones) being used as delightful Easter gifts. In Northern Europe, for example, people love to paint the shells of eggs and then hang them from leafless branches or use them to create various sorts of formal compositions during the Easter season.
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Leaving these delightful traditions aside for a moment, you too can create lovely decorations for eggs, giving free rein to your imagination in coloring their shells, using the natural pigments found in herbs. All you have to do is prepare infusions with coloring properties and boil your eggs in them. In order to obtain a red hue, use turnips (red ones, obviously...) or onion peels. If, however, you want to obtain a green tone, all you have to do is go out into the countryside and gather some nettles or ivy. And for yellow, you can use cumin and chamomile blossoms. And when it comes to selecting your eggs, light-shelled varieties will certainly show off your coloring efforts better than dark-shelled ones. In either case, however, if you want to obtain really brilliant colors, all you have to do is add a few teaspoons of vinegar to your "concotion". If you so desire, it's also possible to fashion lines and decorative patterns by using a paintbrush dipped in lemon juice which, thanks to a simple and harmless chemical reaction, renders the eggshell "impermeable" to the coloring agents present in your dying concoction, except, that is, for the areas not painted with the lemon juice.
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Having ventured into the realm of artistic creativity, it's time to return to the kitchen to explore the multitude of Easter recipes in which eggs are often one of the principal ingredients. And let's begin with the Easter cake, a real classic that you'll find in any self-respecting Italian cookbook. Although it's best served hot, it's also great at room temperature. In many parts of Italy people follow the custom of beginning Easter dinner with hard-boiled eggs that have been blessed in church the previous day. Many Italian women also still prepare special kinds of breads with distinctive shapes in which they have baked whole boiled eggs, either colored or uncolored.
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