Easter In England

Easter arrives quietly, no fanfare, no three month long advertising campaign like the one preceding Christmas. We aren't urged to eat too much, drink to much, party too much, or do anything at all too much. We are permitted to relax and enjoy family life. There is no pressure to overspend on gifts for everyone from our nearest and dearest to the neighbour's dog. Compared to the excesses promoted in the name of Christmas, the consumption of chocolate eggs seems a small indulgence.

In England, Easter is the official start of the gardeners' year and also the time when all DIY enthusiasts, as if driven by some primeval urge, embark upon ambitious projects. If you are not interested in gardening or DIY, you have four whole days free to enjoy as you wish.

Easter is really too early for gardeners to be chancing the lives of tender plants but it is hard to resist the lure of the first real sunny days after the long grey winter. Amateur gardeners take bedding plants from the hothouses and thrust them into soil that's far too cold to encourage growth. The experienced gardeners won't gamble on frost free conditions and content themselves with planting the less decorative but frost-proof seed potatoes and onions. Gardening at Easter is an anxious time because the English weather is reliably unpredictable and even the most dedicated gardener is likely to encounter showers heavy enough to dampen his enthusiasm and drive him indoors for a chocolate egg break.

All the DIY jobs that have been in the planning stage since Christmas are lined up for the Easter break. For the week preceding the holiday, the DIY supply stores will be heaving with customers and taking more money than during any other week of the year. Then it will all go eerily quiet while all the customers adopt a kind of siege mentality and remain at home while they try to cram too much work into the long-anticipated four day weekend.

At Easter Morris dancers, who are not in the least fashionable except in spring, suddenly find themselves in demand. These troupes of dancers are almost exclusively male, rarely seen outside of small villages and are normally associated with a particular public house. Many pubs in England will have a darts team or a quiz team but there are only a few that can boast their own troupe of Morris dancers. As with playing darts, the availability of beer is an important part of this hobby. The amazing thing about Morris dancers is not that there are so few of them, it is that they have survived at all: grown men dressed in silly costumes, skipping around waving handkerchiefs and pigs' bladders to the accompaniment of ancient folk tunes have limited appeal to most of modern society as a source of entertainment. However, they have survived and have spread to places as distant as Canada and New Zealand.

If you want to fully enjoy all the old English Easter traditions, the best place to be is in a quiet village far from any of the big cities. The village church will be beautifully decorated with fresh flowers. The village Easter Bunny will hide Easter eggs for the local children to find during the traditional Easter egg hunt. The Morris dancers will leap and prance at the slightest encouragement. The village bakery will offer fragrant hot cross buns warm from the oven and Simnel cakes with home made marzipan. Easter Sunday dinner will be roast lamb with mint sauce and all the traditional trimmings. Chocolate will be guilt-free for a whole weekend.

Apart from the weather, which will almost certainly include showers, the experience of Easter in a quiet English village couldn't be more idyllic. It is only in a friendly village at this time of year that you can witness anything approaching a return to a more innocent time. There are not many places I can think of where an adult can dress up in a rabbit costume and hand out chocolate to children without having to worry about getting arrested, and men dressed all in white can skip and wave handkerchiefs at each other without attracting the wrong sort of attention. The English village is definitely the place to be for Easter. It is also the best place to enjoy May Day celebrations, but that's another story.

Nobody knows for certain exactly how hot cross buns became an integral part of English Easter tradition. Historians tend to agree that they have their origins in pagan symbolism. Greeks and Egyptians ate small cakes or buns in honour of the respective goddesses that they worshipped. Buns marked with a cross were eaten by the Saxons to honour their goddess Eostre - it is thought the bun represented the moon and the cross the moon's quarters. To Christians, the cross symbolises the crucifixion.

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 probably institutionalized in Tudor times, when a London bylaw was introduced forbidding the sale of such buns except on Good Friday, at Christmas, and at burials.

The Recipe

Home made hot cross buns are so much nicer than shop bought ones there's really no comparison. You do need a bit of time to make these as the dough will need to be left for at least an hour to prove, but the delicious buns you will make will be well worth the effort.

This is my favourite recipe. Most recipes include dried peel. If you like dried peel (I don't) you can use it as part of the 125g of mixed dried fruit.

Ingredients

625g/1.3lb strong white flour, plus extra for dusting
1 tsp salt
2 tsp ground mixed spice
45g/ 1.5 oz unsalted butter, cut into cubes, plus extra for greasing
85g/3oz sugar
1 lemon, zest only
1 tsp fast-action yeast
1 free-range egg
275ml/10fl oz tepid milk
125g/4oz mixed dried fruit

For the topping
2 tbsp plain flour
vegetable oil, for greasing
1 tbsp golden syrup, gently heated, for glazing

Method

1. Sieve the flour, salt and ground mixed spice into a large mixing bowl, then rub in the butter using your fingertips. Make a well in the centre of the mixture, then add the sugar and lemon zest and yeast.
2. Beat the egg and add to the flour with the tepid milk. Mix together to a form a soft, pliable dough.
3. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured work surface. Carefully work the mixed dried fruit into the dough until well combined. Knead lightly for 5 minutes, or until smooth and elastic.
4. Grease a large, warm mixing bowl with butter. Shape the dough into a ball and place it into the prepared bowl, then cover with a clean tea towel and set aside in a warm place for one hour to prove.
5. Turn out the proved dough onto a lightly floured work surface and knock back the dough. Shape it into a ball again and return it to the bowl, then cover again with the tea towel and set aside for a further 30 minutes to rise.
6. Turn out the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and divide it into 12 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a ball, then flatten slightly into a bun shape using the palms of your hands. Cover the buns again with the tea towel and set aside to rest for 5-10 minutes.
7. Grease a baking tray with butter and transfer the buns to the tray. Wrap the tray with the buns on it loosely in greaseproof paper, then place inside a large polythene bag. Tie the end of the bag tightly so that no air can get in and set aside in a warm place for a further 40 minutes to rise.
8. Preheat the oven to 240C/475F/Gas 8.
9. Meanwhile, for the topping, mix the plain flour to a smooth paste with 2 tablespoons of cold water.
10. When the buns have risen, remove the polythene bag and the greaseproof paper. Spoon the flour mixture into a piping bag and pipe a cross on each bun.
11. Transfer the buns to the oven and bake for 8-12 minutes, or until pale golden-brown. As soon as you remove the buns from the oven, brush them with the hot golden syrup, then set aside to cool on a wire rack.

The Simnel cake is associated with Easter today, but was originally made for Mothering Sunday, the fourth Sunday in Lent. Originally Mothering Sunday was the day when the congregations of the daughter churches of a parish went to the mother church, usually an abbey, to give their offerings.

In the 17th century, Mothering Sunday became the day when girls in service were allowed a day off to go and visit their mothers. This was their one and only holiday in the year. The girls would bake their mothers a Simnel cake as a gift.

Simnel cake is enriched with marzipan and decorated with 11 marzipan balls representing the 12 apostles minus Judas, who betrayed Christ. Simnel cakes nowadays are often decorated with Easter chicks and flowers. There are chocolate covered versions of simnel cake, and sometimes the cake are decorated with miniature chocolate Easter eggs. If you want to bake a truly traditional simnel cake the 11 marzipan balls are essential to the symbolism.

The Recipe

Ingredients

For the almond paste
250g/9oz caster sugar
250g/9oz ground almonds
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp almond essence

For the cake
175g/6oz butter or margarine
175g/6oz soft brown sugar
3 free-range eggs, beaten
175g/6oz plain flour
pinch salt
tsp ground mixed spice (optional)
350g/12oz mixed raisins, currants and sultanas
55g/2oz chopped mixed peel
lemon, grated zest only
1-2 tbsp apricot jam
1 egg, beaten for glazing

Method

1.For the almond paste, place the sugar and ground almonds in a bowl. Add enough beaten egg and mix to a fairly soft consistency.
2. Add the almond essence and knead for one minute until the paste is smooth and pliable.
3. Roll out a third of the almond paste to make a circle 18cm/7in in diameter and reserve the remainder for the cake topping.
4. Preheat oven to 140C/275F/Gas 1. Grease and line a 18cm/7in cake tin.
5. For the cake, cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Gradually beat in the eggs until well incorporated and then sift in the flour, salt and mixed spice (if using) a little at a time. Finally, add the mixed dried fruit, peel and grated lemon zest and stir into the mixture.
6. Put half the mixture into a greased and lined 18cm/7in cake tin. Smooth the top and cover with the circle of almond paste. Add the rest of the cake mixture and smooth the top leaving a slight dip in the centre to allow for the cake to rise. Bake in the preheated oven for 1 hours. Test by inserting a skewer in the middle - if it comes out clean, it is ready. Once baked, remove from the oven and set aside to cool on a wire rack.
7. Brush the top of the cooled cake with the apricot jam. Divide the remainder of the almond paste in half; roll out a circle to cover the top of the cake with one half and form 11 small balls with the other half.
8. Place the circle of paste on the jam glaze and set the balls round the edge. Brush the cake topping with a little beaten egg.
9. Preheat the grill to high. Place the cake onto a baking tray and grill for 1-2 minutes, or until the top of the marzipan begins to brown. Alternatively, lightly heat the cake topping using a cook's blow torch, until the marzipan is golden-brown.

" The Widow had an only son
The Sea was his concern
His passing wish an Easter bun
Be kept for his return".

Easter is the most important event in the Christian calendar but, although England is described as a "Christian country", our society is multi-cultural and many people living in England simply enjoy Easter as a holiday and tuck into chocolate eggs and hot cross buns without giving a thought to their symbolic meanings. You would be forgiven for thinking that England has no Easter traditions because it is a time for quiet family gatherings with none of the razzmatazz and hectic atmosphere that accompanies Christmas. Many of the ancient traditions are now only observed in the close communities of our smaller towns and villages.

At Easter churches in England are decorated with special care and the Madonna Lily (also called the Easter Lily), a symbol of purity, features widely in flower arrangements. People who only attend church on special occasions will turn out on Easter Day wearing the modern equivalent of the Easter Bonnet.

There are numerous customs and superstitions associated with Easter in England that we now take for granted. Some are relatively new, some are rooted in Christianity, some stem from older beliefs and often several roots have become intertwined and meanings have merged over time so that the origins are no longer clear.

The sending of Easter cards is a fairly new custom having been introduced during the reign of Queen Victoria. A stationer added a seasonal greeting to a drawing of a rabbit which was already symbolic of the springtime and the Easter card was born.

The Easter Bunny as we know him has evolved from roots in pagan times when the hare was a powerful symbol of fertility and the new life of the spring season. The bunny's association with Easter came much later, having originated from 16th century German folk lore where children were promised that the Easter Hare would bring them eggs on Easter Day if they were good.

Easter foods are important to the celebration of Easter in England. Roast Lamb is a favourite traditional dinner for Easter Day. The lamb is a symbol of innocence in many cultures and in past centuries it was considered a lucky omen to meet a lamb, (maybe not so lucky for the lamb if Easer was approaching). Simnel cake, which is now special to Easter, was originally given as gifts to mothers on Mothering Sunday; the cake is decorated with eleven balls of marzipan to represent the eleven true disciples. The all-important treats in the form of chocolate Easter Eggs only became popular in the twentieth century when solid chocolate became widely available.

Hot Cross buns are surprising rich in symbolism and superstitious meaning. To Christians hot cross buns symbolise the cross that Jesus was crucified on and it is traditional to eat them on Good Friday, the anniversary of his death. However, the Saxons ate buns marked with a cross and it is thought the bun represented the moon and the cross the moon's four quarters. There are other superstitions attached to hot cross buns. One such superstition is that hot cross buns baked on Good Friday would last a year without going mouldy. Hardened buns have been used as a lucky charm to protect homes from fire. Hot cross buns and Easter are also connected with seafaring superstition: sailors took hardened buns to sea to protect them from shipwreck and many fishermen will not go to sea to catch fish on Good Friday.

There is a public house in Bow, near the docks in East London, which is named The Widow's Son and has the alternative name of "The Bun House". This building was originally a cottage belonging to a widow whose only child was a sailor. The son's ship was due back on Good Friday and he had asked his mother to bake hot cross buns to celebrate his return. He did not return on Good Friday and the widow saved one of the buns for him. Every year until her death, the widow baked hot cross buns and saved one of the batch in anticipation of having her only son restored to her. The buns were suspended from a ceiling beam (presumably to preserve them from mice). The son never returned and is believed to have perished at sea.

The cottage was turned into a public house in 1848 and the widow's hot cross bun tradition was preserved. Every Good Friday a Royal Navy sailor adds a new bun to the ones still hanging from the ceiling in a net and says a prayer in memory of the widow and her lost son. I last visited The Widow's Son many years ago when my uncle was the landlord but I believe the tradition of adding to the hot cross buns continues to this day.

Eggs are a forbidden food during Lent and their return to the menu is celebrated on Easter Day. The first Easter eggs were birds' eggs which were painted in bright colours to symbolise the fresh colours of spring. Christians would dye boiled eggs red to symbolise the blood of Christ and these were given to children in the belief that they would afford protection from bad luck throughout the following year. Nowadays few people in England take the trouble to paint ornate decorations onto boiled eggs for Easter but many people still dye boiled eggs as a traditional part of their Easter.

The tradition of Easter Egg hunts for children is no longer widespread, especially in our cities, but it has not died out completely. Easter eggs, particularly the chocolate variety, are probably the most popular and widely recognised symbol of Easter; as Easter eggs symbolise new life and the resurrection, this seems quite appropriate.