As a holiday is celebrated with spirit and emotion, food is the perfect complementary item to help express and demonstrate a festive feeling. Holidays are met with a mental state —through prayer, happiness and remembrance— and a physical state —through eating, feasting and indulging. Whether it is religious or non-denominational holiday, people are able to rejoice and celebrate by eating and drinking. For example, people toast with champagne on New Years Eve, bite into chocolate on Valentine's Day, dip into salsa on Cinco de Mayo, cook hamburgers and hotdogs on the Fourth of July, and roast a turkey on Thanksgiving. Many holiday traditions are expressed and celebrated with food. This weekend we celebrate two religious holidays—the beginning of Passover and Easter Sunday. Both of these holidays are centered around a big meal shared by families and friends.
During Passover, a Seder meal is used to re-tell the story of Exodus —how the Israelites escaped slavery in Egypt through the infliction of the ten plagues and to pay tribute to past Jewish hardships. Different foods are used to symbolize elements of the story. A traditional arrangement of a Seder plate includes six items —Maror, Charoset, Karpas, Zeroa, Beitzah and Matzoh.
Maror is a bitter herb (usually grated horseradish) that is used to express the suffering and bitterness of Jewish slavery. Charoset is a mixture of fruits and nuts used to demonstrate the mortar slaves had to use for the Pharaohs' buildings. Besides the bitter herb, Karpas is another vegetable featured, which is usually parsley representing hope and redemption dipped in salted water symbolizing tears. The Zeroa, a roasted leg of lamb, symbolizes festival sacrifices offered in the Temple of Jerusalem, and the Beitzah, a hard-boiled egg, is a symbol of life and the perpetuation of existence. Probably the famous of all Seder food is the matzoh, unleavened bread as a reminder of the haste with which Israelites had to flee Egypt.
Along with these specific foods, another Seder ritual is to drink four cups of red wine symbolizing freedom from the four exiles: Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek and Moshiach. Red wine, or kosher grape juice for a non-alcoholic option, is used to represent the blood sacrificed during this time of oppression.
Switching religious gears, Christians will be celebrating Easter on Sunday commemorating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This holiday also marks the end of Lent, a 40-day time period when a person commits to giving up a luxury in life as a repentance of sin. Often times, people will choose to give up their favorite food.
One of my favorite foods is cheese —brie, cheddar, gouda, American, Swiss or really any kind of cheese. Because I put cheese on bread for sandwiches, cut slices into a salad and essentially put cheese as a topping or side on all types of foods, I would choose to give this up for Lent.
The Easter egg, used to celebrate rejuvenation and rebirth in the spring season, was originally used with a chicken egg that was colored with paint or dye. Nowadays, children will often dip hard-boiled eggs in dye or replace colorful eggs with ones that are chocolate. Other popular holiday toys are hollow plastic eggs that are often filled with various candies or jellybeans.
If I had to come up with an ideal Easter feast, I would include a baked, honey-glazed ham or lamb, deviled eggs, vegetable soup (carrot or tomato), fresh spring salad in light vinaigrette, cold pasta dish and a variety of seasonal sides (roasted potatoes or asparagus). In addition to eating chocolate bunnies and Easter candy for dessert, a sweet treat to enjoy might be a fruit tart or cobbler (with homemade crust), angel food cake with strawberries or chocolate-mint pudding.
Holidays and annual events mark a growth in history, custom, ritual and tradition. We not only use food to celebrate life in many ways, but people look to use it as a freedom of expression, appreciation, respect and care. Apart from the millions of delicious and different combinations one can create with it, food is able to transmit a message that sometimes words or actions cannot effectively get across.
As an underlying theme throughout my column this semester, I stress the important role food plays in bringing people together. Regardless of religious faith, ethnicity or geographic region, food is a universal element that can create common ground harmonizing people with one another.
Story by Brown and White opinion writer Anya Bingler, '12.