Easter memories from LifestyleDMC
We know that Easter passed already, but here for you a tour to some cultural tips and memories of Easter from some of our staff members.
Ilaria – Italy
In my family Easter means having lunch all together. Traditional Easter food can vary from region to region although some are mainstays and can be found all over Italy during Easter. In Italy it’s almost mandatory to have “agnello” or lamb as the main course for the Easter meal. But, I have to be sincere and confess to you the main dish that my family and I are eating all together during Easter Day is spiedo. Spiedo is a traditional dish originating from the province of Brescia, where I am from. It consists of different types of meat such as pork, beef, chicken, and rabbit, skewered with potato sliced and sage leaves. All roasted together for at least 4 hours.
Yummyyy!!!
And as a dessert?? Naturally, in Italy there is no lack of dolci on any day, especially on Easter. A must for my region is the “Colomba di Pasqua”, a dove-shaped cake with candied fruit and almonds. Moreover, that’s totally the best period of the year for chocolate lovers. It’s a classic to eat over-sized, hollow chocolate eggs with a hidden surprise inside. Kids normally receive so many chocolate eggs as gifts that for months we have enough chocolate to cook as many cakes as we want.
Anna – Spain
The tradition in Barcelona is la Mona de Pascua. The tradition says that the Godparents give the “Mona de Pascua” to their Godchildren on Easter Sunday, but the sweet treat is not eaten until the following day, Easter Monday. La Mona de Pascua, or simply La Mona, is a cake with a figure made of chocolate on top of it. At the beginning it was the Easter egg, as many other places in the World. But with time and expertise of the master cake chef they started to be more creative and present more intricate pieces some in such complex detail that they could be easily viewed as works of art.
And marketing, of course, tuned the cake themes. The patisseries started to display on their windows the Monas with forms of the latest kid’s programs on TV, or latest heroes on the cinemas. It was a paradise to stop at every cake shop in town and marvel at the Monas of a Smurfs village made of chocolate or Maya the Honey-bee made of chocolate, with its several stripes made of white and dark chocolate.
I have a very fond memory of Easter Monas. I was probably 7 or 8 and everyday I was taking a school bus to take me to the school, at the outskirts of the city. We were doing several stops, picking up other kids on our way. Not far from Diagonal avenue, before turning to Travessera de les Corts there was a cake shop. From my seat on the bus, every morning I could see an all chocolate human size C3PO waving Hi! from the shop’s window. Every morning I was making sure I was sitting on the “right side” of the bus to have a short glimpse of this gigantic C3PO made of chocolate occupying all the store windows. Every day, and for a few seconds. Enjoying dreaming of this Mona, 3 times larger than me, made of chocolate. How I would wish one of the kids would need to be picked up just there, so I could indulge myself not only with the view, but also with the promise of all that chocolate could melt in my mouth!!
And for our last tour, here come the bestsellers of Easter, the Easter eggs. Keep reading if you want to know what Jasper and Emilie have to share with us.
Jasper – The Netherlands
When you are a kid it is a tradition to paint ”Easter eggs” and the parent or grandparent hide them in their garden. After this, the kids have a competition who find the most eggs. In my family, most of the time we only painted 2 or 3 eggs each of us. So my grandparents bought a lot of chocolate eggs and hid them as well in the garden. It was always a competition between brothers, sisters and cousins of who could find more eggs.
The story behind this is that the” Paashaas ” (translated as “Easter Bunny”) hides all the eggs in the garden for the kids.
Emilie – France
In my family we have never had a traditional dish that we make every Easter but when I was younger we would go to my grandparents’ house with all my cousins for the egg hunt! It was super nice ! We could always miss some that would be found 6 months later or mowed by my grandfather!!!
Hope you enjoyed our trip.
And now, what about you? Share with us your Easter traditions.
