3. Easter
Source of Recipe
Food Network
While Easter means bunnies and chocolate eggs to some, for Orthodox Christians, it's a time to celebrate with religious services and a feast to end Lent's strict fasting.
On Easter--or Pascha, from the Hebrew "pesach," which means "to pass over"--Orthodox Christians dine on meat, fish and dairy, foods usually given up during Lent. While specific dishes vary by country, lamb is common "because Christ is the Lamb of God, the sacrificial lamb," explains Father Christopher Calin, a priest at the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of the Holy Virgin Protection in New York City. Pascha lamb is usually roasted on a spit over a fire and served with a mint or horseradish sauce.
Other dishes often in a Russian Orthodox feast include smoked or cured fish (such as lox), caviar and kielbasa, a Polish sausage. Kulich, a sweet, yeasty bread, contains plenty of eggs, butter and milk, breaking the fast in a delicious way. "It sometimes has raisins in it, and it's topped with a white glaze and sprinkled with little sprinkles and fresh flowers, and it's beautiful," Calin says.
Kulich is served with a soft cheese called sirnaya pascha, which literally translates to "Easter cheese." It's a mixture of farmer's or cottage cheese and heavy cream or cream cheese, shaped in pyramid-like wooden molds and garnished with fruits and nuts. "It's sweet and has a vanilla taste to it," Calin explains.
At the midnight service preceeding Pascha, Orthodox Christians bring baskets of food to be blessed. Baskets usually contain decorated eggs, the special bread and sweet cheese, sausages, horseradish, salt and wine.
"The only problem I have with Pascha is when people bring these baskets in at 11:30, the service doesn't end until about 3:30, so by the time it's over the whole place smells like a restaurant," Calin chuckles. "But then we eat, and we have a celebration here until sunrise, feasting."
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