Easter was not a very massive thing in our family, it doesn't really compare to Christmas which was usually pretty big. Easter is usually a bit more on the quiet side. Usually, my mom would have brought some lilac in the house and the house would smell absolutely amazing. The table would be set and generally, breakfast would be the more important part of the day.
There would be coloured hard-boiled eggs, courtesy of me, that used to be my job. There would be "salata de vinete" (aubergine salad), "drob" (similar to haggis), spring onions, radishes, "telemea" (similar to feta) and meat, mostly lamb.
It would look a bit similar to the next picture, but there would be more meat on the table and some Romanian cheese, which is difficult to find in the UK. I did find some "telemea" in Mansfield, but I don't live near Mansfield anymore and we are currently in lockdown, so going to multiple shops for food items is a bit frowned upon.
For lunch, there would be again some of the same as for breakfast as an entree. Then a soup, usually "ciorba de miel" loosely translated as lamb soup, followed by lamb steak and sweet cakes. As you can see, a lot of food. I do wonder how I could eat a lot of that as a child, now I can't even have a soup and a main meal without exploding and not eating anything until the very next morning. The things you get used too.
I remember one Easter, together with my mom and my brother, we went to a botanical garden near our home city of Arad. It was a beautiful spring day and we spent all afternoon walking through the park.
I was baptized Catholic and my parents were Orthodox, so we used to celebrate Easter twice. Also, going to Church and mass twice. And yes, Jesus did resurrect twice for us, as weird as that sounds, but when you have a family of diverse faiths, you just roll with it I guess. Nowadays I only keep the one Easter, and in the UK it coincides with the Catholic Easter.
I kinda roped in my housemate to having a Romanian Easter. Coloured eggs, and "drob" and of course "salata de vinete". We had a bit of difficulty in finding any dye for the eggs this year, so I had said to him we might actually give up on trying to dye the eggs. He didn't want to hear it. So on our last adventure out of the house, for food shopping, we had found some egg dye and Lidl and he happily took on the task of dyeing the eggs while I was making the other foods we were going to have.
I think he did a very good job. In general, eggs used to be only painted red. According to legend, it is told that Mary, Mother of Jesus, brought a basket of eggs which she wanted to give to the guards at the crucifixion. The guards rejected the gift and taunted Jesus even more. Crying, Mary left the basket of eggs at Jesus' feet. The blood that was flowing down His body left the eggs stained red. Looking at them, Jesus whispered that from that day onward all Christians would paint red eggs. That's how red eggs became a symbol of Resurrection.
We each choose an egg and bash the two pointy ends together. So, one holds the egg, one comes in and bashes the other egg saying, "Jesus has risen" (Hristos a Inviat), while the one holding the egg still, says "Truly He has risen" (Adevarat a Inviat).
As I got used to eating less, and also less fatty, and obviously without meat, Easter became a bit more tailored to our household. While I was married it still encompassed some meat, as my ex-husband used to eat meat, but now it is all fully vegetarian.
It is so nice when your housemate decides he doesn't want to eat meat either anymore. Thank you, Okja! If you have not seen it, it is worth a watch. It is a South Korean-American movie about a little girl who raises a genetically modified superpig. It is on Netfilx. But I digress.
Easter has become a bit of a mixture in our home. We have the typical Romanian breakfast, minus the meat, we have a lighter lunch, I made a Spanakopita, a Greek-inspired quiche, I shall call it. As something sweet this year, I have gone for oven-baked doughnuts. We also have gotten each other the typical British Easter Egg, made of chocolate. Mine is a wonderful white chocolate egg, called Eaton Mess. I am not a big fan of white chocolate, but this one tastes especially nice.
Now we had to have something like a salty snack as well, for in between when you are not really hungry, but you still would love to snack on something. So I made another staple of Romanian food life, the salty sticks, "saratele". They are traditionally made with cheese and mine are made with cheese as well, but quark rather than "telemea". Again, same reason, quark is much easier to find and I enjoy working with it more than with "telemea" or feta. It's smoother and incorporates easier with the rest of the ingredients.
If you would like to try any or all of the Easter treats, just click on the highlighted words and it will take you straight to the recipes I used.
This is now my Easter. A bit of everything all mixed up into one. There are many things I miss about Easter in my childhood, mainly my parents and my brother, not the excessive meat so much, but also the beautiful smell of lilacs throughout the house. They are one of my favourite flowers and I always have a Yves Rocher Lilac perfume that I use during spring.
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