The day before Lent is called shrove Tuesday and in England it is referred to as Pancake Day. Traditionally, it is the day when you use up all the “goodies” in your larder in preparation for fasting during lent which the making of pancakes represents. Ash Wednesday is the first day of lent and the sign of the cross is drawn in ashes on your forehead, by the priest, to signify the repentance of your sins. Its origin stems from centuries ago when people poured ashes over their heads and dressed in sackcloth to show that they were repenting their sins throughout lent.

Lent comprises of 46 days (6 weeks) although only 40 days count as lent as the six Sundays in Lent are excluded from the fasting restrictions Lent imposes. Holy week, the last week of Lent begins with Palm Sunday which takes its name from when Jesus entered into Jerusalem and the crowds laid palm leaves at his feet.

The Thursday during Holy week is called Maundy Thursday and it is in the evening of that day that Jesus had his last supper with his disciples before his crucifixion. Good Friday is the anniversary of the crucifixion and Holy week and Lent ends with Easter Sunday, the day of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

When I was a child, living in England , on Good Friday all the shops would be closed except for the baker’s and he would have been up most of the night making hot cross buns. We would collect them early in the morning and eat them piping hot, spread with butter, for breakfast. They are individual yeast buns containing dried fruits and spices and have a cross drawn in paste on the top.

Nowadays you just buy hot cross buns from the local supermarket and warm them in the oven for breakfast on Good Friday but they do not really taste the same as the ones the traditional baker made. In fact these days they are available for many weeks before and after Easter so they are not such a special treat. Fish is usually cooked for dinner on Good Friday.

 

Easter Saturday is just like any other Saturday and the supermarkets are open so everyone is still shopping for the Easter Sunday family gatherings. Easter Sunday is the day you exchange chocolate Easter Eggs with family and friends – of course the children getting most of them.

 

The main course for Easter Sunday Lunch is traditionally roast lamb and mint sauce which is served with a variety of vegetables. In recent years it has become popular to have roast turkey instead of lamb because if families get together it is considerably cheaper to feed a number of people with turkey than with lamb which is very expensive.

Simnel cake is a traditional Easter cake which is made with dried fruits and spice and is cooked with a layer of marzipan in its centre. After cooking it is topped with a layer of marzipan and decorated with 11 small marzipan balls to represent the 11 disciples of Jesus – the twelfth disciple is excluded because he was Judas, the traitor.

Because Easter is the time to indulge in chocolate delights I like to make a very rich chocolate biscuit cake (plain cookies layered with dark chocolate fudge) and served with whipped cream and a devils food chocolate cake (really dark chocolate) topped with white mallow frosting.

After everybody has eaten so much over Easter Sunday a lighter meal is usually served on Easter Monday although, of course, there are cakes to finish up from the day before.

So far, I have spent 2 Easters in Hungary and they were very different to an English one. Hungarians call Lent the “great fast” (nagyböjt) and there was a time when it was forbidden to eat any meat during lent so the day before Ash Wednesday is called Meat Abandoning Tuesday (húshagyó kedd).

On Palm Sunday, hundreds of years ago, it was customary to bless the various flowers of the season and today it is still known as Flower Sunday (virágvasárnap)

Good Friday (nagy-péntek) was at one time spent in total fast – and is still, if religious customs are still observed by the family. It is also the day when the eggs are decorated. Eggs are hard-boiled and are either dropped into dye and a design etched onto the egg or designs are painted onto the egg after it has cooked and cooled.

Holy Saturday (nagyszombat) is the day when the food is blessed in preparation for the end of the fast on Easter Sunday which is still referred to as the festival of meat (húsvét).

Huge amounts of food are prepared for Easter Sunday. The traditional diosbeigli (walnut roll) and makosbeigli (ground poppy seed roll) are baked as well as numerous traditional torta (cakes) and heaps of pogácsa, yeast scones cooked with túró (cream cheese) and tejföl (sour cream).

The traditional meat for Easter is a whole smoked ham, boiled in a large cauldron with herbs and onions and served accompanied by either potatoes, pasta or rice and a great variety of winter salads.

Children are given chocolate rabbits and chocolate eggs as well as the decorated eggs and young children are told that the Easter rabbit brings the eggs.

Easter Monday is called the second day of Easter ( húsvét második nap) and the events of this day are the main reason why eggs are decorated in Hungary . At one time the boys visited the girls and doused them thoroughly with buckets or bottles of water while reciting a rhyme:

 

Good day, good day, my lily, I water you to keep you from withering, water for your health, water for your home, water for your land, here's water, water!

Don't shriek and cry and run away: It's good for you on dousing day.

At one time this practice was much rougher and the young men would drag the girls to ponds, wells or streams at dawn and throw them in. It was expected that the girls would accept this all in good humor and reward their tormentors with decorated eggs, cakes and a glass of palinka or wine.

The dousing was supposed to make of them good wives in the future who would bear many children.The custom is still carried out but in a much gentler form and nowadays the boys sprinkle the girls with perfume. Unfortunately, cheap perfume is sold specially for this occasion which smells awful, so, although the girls are delighted and accept the honor of being sprinkled, they are more concerned with washing the multitude of odours from their hair afterwards. Also, now, men of all ages visit all the ladies they know in the district to sprinkle them with perfume and receive their rewards, starting early in the morning and finishing late in the evening not many return home sober or without a bag full of eggs and cakes.

Nobody told me about this custom before I spent my first Easter in Hungary and I was horrified when a man came up to me and poured cheap perfume over my head – imagine my thoughts at that time – I did keep smiling - but of course now I know all about the custom and do enjoy joining in the fun – but I do make sure I warn any lady visitors, from other countries, what to expect.