WHY DO SOME PEOPLE SERVE HAM FOR EASTER DINNER?
Historians tell us religions sometimes use food (taboos/traditional holiday meals) to forge identity and create community. Early Christians embraced ham, in part, to proclaim their religious beliefs. According to the Encyclopedia of Religion, Mircea Eliade editor in chief [MacMillan:New York] 1987, volume 5 (p. 558): “Among Easter foods the most significant is the Easter lamb, which is in many places the main dish of the Easter Sunday meal. Corresponding to the Passover lamb and to Christ, the Lamb of God, this dish has become a central symbol of Easter. Also popular among European and Americans on Easter is ham, because the pig was considered a symbol of luck in pre-Christian Europe.” ABOUT HOT CROSS BUNS “The practice of eating special small cakes at the time of the Spring festival seems to date back at least to the ancient Greeks, but the English custom of eating spiced buns on Good Friday was perhaps institutionalized in Tudor times, when a London bylaw was introduced forbidding th
