I think most Christian families have some kind of routine on the whole Easter Sunday meal. Some eat ham, some turkey, and probably most eat lamb. You know, the whole lamb of God deal. In my family growing up we ate lamb and we had this nasty green jelly that went along with it. I always thought the lamb was kind of gamey, although that doesn’t mean it wasn’t good. I just couldn’t fully embrace the meal, if you know what I mean. I’ve since learned to prepare lamb that I really like. I do this mainly by using Indian recipes. Nothing like a great homemade curry to make meat taste delicious. Anyway, Easter doesn’t really mean a lot to me since I am not a big believer in the resurrection. So, I don’t really care what I eat. But I have to go shopping for something. And ideas?
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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Corned beef and cabbage with potatoes and carrots, with Amish horseradish, is always appropriate for any season of the year. When I tell my wife this she just pats me on the head and tells me to go fiddle with my computer.
sounds good to me. I love corned beef.
I’ve been a Christian for a pretty long time and I don’t know anyone who eats lamb for Easter, but that could be a cultural thing.
so, what’s your tradition?
We really don’t have one for Easter – just another Sunday dinner, really. The truth is that in our tradition every Sunday is Easter – a celebration of the Resurrection – it’s just that this one Sunday gets more emphasis.
yeah, we didn’t even take the day of rest part seriously. Sunday school made me miss the kick-off the Giants game, and then there was the whole mowing the lawn thing. Quoting scripture couldn’t buy me a break on that whole thing.
Same here for the “day of rest”.
My chore was to cut the grass on Saturday, but we lived a couple of blocks from the largest orthodox Jewish synagogue in the US–in Memphis believe it or not.
By the time I got to be 12 or so and beginning to feel ecumenical and aware, I thought cutting the grass while dozens of orthodox Jews walked to synagogue on Saturday was disrespectful. Plus, a rabbi lived next door.
So, I started mowing on Sunday instead. My Irish Catholic family didn’t care a whit, but on the other side of us lived a Baptist preacher–and I got plenty of dirty looks from him.
I finally reverted to Friday mowing–good thing there were no Muslims around back then.
Me neither! My family’s mainstream Protestant in the deep South.
Me either. I’ve never known anyone who eats lamb on Easter.
No idea, but then I’m Jewish.
Now, the thing about the seder is all the drinking. The last one I went to, I could barely maintain my balance by the end of it. What’s it? Like four, five glasses of wine?
That’s about right. Unfortunately I can’t do that because of my meds.
Do you have the same main course every year?
Nothing is set in stone, but it’s often a brisket. That’s what we had this year.
I slow-cooked a brisket about a month ago. Made sandwiches for a week. Completely delicious.
Sliced thin it is perfect for sandwiches.
with the slow-cook, you pull it all apart with forks, so it’s shredded. You add a homemade sauce, and you’ve got stuff for a ton of sandwiches.
You lightweight 😛
J/k. It’s four glasses.
I seem to recall you being a bit of an over achiever on the wine front. Also on the good conversation…
My favorite lamb recipe is to roast the leg in balsamic vinegar and lemon juice. Before you do that you have to rub the lamb with garlic, thyme and rosemary. I’m pretty sure you have had that recipe before.
No ideas, as I’m a vegetarian. When I used to eat meat, I loved lamb, but only when it was grilled. It’s really a delicious piece of meat, very lean. A lot of people don’t seem to like it, I never knew why.
And as for Easter, well, being a non-believer in God altogether, I guess you can stake out what I’ll be doing this weekend lol. Some friends of mine were thinking of preparing a meal of some sort on Sunday, so I might just go even though I’ll probably the only atheist there…probably the only vegetarian as well.
Tonight shall be a night to, as Duncan says, drink liberally.
There are some greeks in my family tree through marriage. When I have spent “Greek Easter” at the Tula’s House in Napa, it’s just the biggest thing of the year. Each elder man in the huge family tree brings a young whole freshly-butchered lamb and the dozens of kids, cousins, grandkids, etc. spend the day helping them cook the lambs over a fire with the rotisserie. BTW, this is the ONLY way I like lamb cooked. It gets rid of all the excess fat and any gaminess.
The elder women all fuss around in the kitchen making every Greek dish under the sun, stuffing Gyros with roast lamb and that yogurt-like dressing, etc. Their goal is to stuff all of the young guests so full that they’re on the verge of puking. When you declare that you’re full, they start howling that you must not like their cooking and force you to eat even more. The younger folks’ goal is to get everybody drunk on shots of Ouzo and play practical jokes on them.
Americans just don’t know how to do Easter. We’re all so bland.
One of my brothers married into a Greek family. They definitely do the holidays with gusto (and weddings).
I think Greeks do everything with gusto. And I say that as an honorary Greek. Opa!
Opa! I’ve become an “honorary” Greek myself, through my sister’s marriage. That movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” presents the Greek family experience so well. What shocked me most at first was EVERYBODY kissing me so much and like rubbing on my arm or shoulder whenever I talked, so attentive and nurturing. We Americans are afraid of touching each other. And the brothers would try to trick me into embarrassing situations… You gotta let ’em get away with so much of it to complete the family bond. And it’s all good family fun.
I’ve really enjoyed getting together with the Greek part of the family. But I’m an atheist, so Easter means little to me. They didn’t care.
Eating lamb because of the “lamb of God” thing?
Ewwww!! Glad I’m not religious.
Doing the traditional BooMan:
ham, green beans, mac and cheese, sweet potatoes, cornbread, regular salad and probably chess pie for dessert.
I wish I could invite myself to your Easter 🙂
That’s basically what we have: ham, some sort of potatoes, usually scalloped, but this year German potato salad, fresh green beans, biscuits.
Ooh, German potato salad.
I want pulled pork sandwiches, potato salad, fresh fruit salad, and some kind of yummy no-dairy dessert. Maybe we could throw a 3-bean salad in there too.
Real Beef Jerky is perfect for any holiday. Like, when you sit down with a friend with a drink. It is a given that anyone who sits down and hands you a drink is a friend, tho. This recipe was intended for November, but given our Global Climactic (yes yes YES) Change, it also works before Yeaster, or whatever you may call it. – – – –
For sports fans, the approach of end of the football season means good food. Last weekend’s stadiums are filled with culinary delights. Still, it is hard to argue with food cooked just outside of the stadium. Somehow it tastes even better, even if your vehicle has no tail to gate. Spending time with good friends, inspecting the bottoms of bottles and slaving over hot coals makes everything tastier, even if the raw centers of parking lot burgers make you sick at halftime.
agnostic’s diary :: ::
It is a well-known tailgating rule that hotdogs which fall off of your grill remain edible so long as they don’t lay on the road for longer than one standard TV ad, unless they get smashed by a passing SUV or pre-inebriated fan just before retrieval.
There is a third alternative, the only one available to the vast majority of sports fans – your Famous Home Cooked (grilled?) meal. Here is how to make that perfect meal for your best friends and family.
High quality raw materials are incredibly important. Keep that in mind when you make your shopping list. The better the ingredients, the better your result will be. So, don’t delay, and head straight for the beer department of your friendly neighborhood grocer. Take your time, choose carefully, and shop smart. Do the large Sapporos really taste that good to the bitter end? Can you really deal with six-packs of Guinness? And what if you fill up too quickly on an imported pale ale? Now that the most important job is done, you may as well look at the rest of the list.
Find the highest quality, nicely marbled, top-of-the-line, extra-large beef loin from your friendly grocer’s fridge. You know, the kind that attracts your eyes, entices your belly and lightens your pocket book. Eye it carefully. Poke at it gently through the plastic. Try to smell it through the wrap.
Why? Who knows? Just try to look professional and pretend that you know what you are doing.
Once home, set your oven to 450 F. or higher. (Secret cooking tip: the higher the temps, the faster it cooks) Open beer.
Chop the onions, peppers, celery, garlic and chives. Grab a band-aid. No, the large one. Grab more beer for medicinal purposes.
Look at your loin. Start a fruitless search for a cookbook, then open new beer. Grab the nearest bottle from the bottom shelf. If looks at all like Soy Sauce, Corn Oil, Worcester Sauce or Kayo Syrup, don’t worry. Any one of them will do just find. Just slather it on the meat. However, if it looks like beer, sip carefully. Heck, if your beer got too warm you can use that, too.
Recall the best tasting loin you once had? To make it even better, spread a thick layer of pepper and salt over the entire surface of loin. A half-inch of each ought to do it. Place your perfect loin in oven. Open beer. Increase the temps in stove so your perfect loin cooks even faster. Consider upgrading stove to hotter model. Fondly recall 11 out of 10 from Spinal Tap.
Begin a fruitless search for potatoes. Check the freezer for a third time. Scratch head while staring at empty fridge. Replace band-aid. Turn up heat to maximum. Scratch lower regions.
Drive back to the grocer to pick up more beer (Medicinal purposes) and seriously missing potatoes. Three quarter’s way through drive back from store, make U-turn and pick up still missing potatoes. Recall the Bears schedule. Turn on radio pre-game coverage in car. Speed home before beer warms up. Test new purchases for quality control. Repeat.
Peel potatoes. Open beer, after attaching third and fourth band-aids and re-attaching band-aids #1 & 2. Answer phone call from Honey. Assure her you are handling today’s meal. Act upset and shocked at the gurgling sound coming from the phone. Hang up. Open medicinal beer. Wipe blood off potatoes with dirty dish-rag so as not to stain the taters.
Call best friend and debate disturbing lack of offensive line and the need for a tight end with two functioning hands. Stare at multiple bandages on fingers.
Open beer.
Invite best friend and his spousette for wonderful, perfect loin dinner you will create. Hang up abruptly after former best friend inquires who is cooking, who then starts laughing hysterically after hearing your response. Open beer. Make promise to self to shoot former best friend whenever the opportunity arises. Make note to buy gun.
Put pot on stove. Heat. Add handful or so of salt. Add six semi-peeled potatoes. Add cup or so of water. Grab beer. Decide salad will be nice touch. Shred bare, unwashed lettuce head with bare, unwashed hands. Place shred in bowl. Add onions, chives and celery. Mix by hand. Replace all missing band-aids. Fruitlessly searching for missing band-aids in salad. Shrug shoulders and open beer. Repeat.
Search for eating oil. Grab beer. Watch kick-off fumbled by top Bears draft choice. Swear at resulting TD. Replace empty beer.
Find sesame oil and extremely fancy bottle of balsamic vinegar in really fancy bottle. Empty each onto salad and veggies. Realize you forgot to mix or shake the fluids before pouring.
Grab beer. Think. Open unopened beer in hand. Watch end of first quarter, expressing relief that the Bears are only down by 14.
Remove lid off of boiling potatoes’ pot, place hot top over salad bowl. Swear loudly over burned hands. Grab new cold beer for medicinal purposes. Apply generously to internal organs.
Try to shake salad bowl so oil and vinegar mix. Drop burning hot pot lid off salad bowl. Watch as salad, veggies, oil, and vinegar fly out of bowl and separate all over kitchen floor. Swear again.
Miss 48 yard field goal by Bears after recovery of fumble. Replace all salad back into bowl. Wash kitchen floor for first time in history of American male sports fans. Swear off salads for the meal tonight. Check multiple band-aides. Replace missing ones.
Grab beer. Watch incredible Bears TD at the end of 1st half. Call former best friend again. Agree they are looking good. Friend agrees to come over for correction of dangerously low blood-alcohol levels. Plus, he offers to bring more beer. Immediately forgive all of his transgressions and previous bad behavior when he appears at doorstep holding a chilled case of nice imported brand as peace offering. Accept offering graciously as good host.
At end of third quarter, realize that boiled potatoes should not smell as though they were fried. Rush to kitchen, burn other parts of hands while trying to remove smoking blackened potato pot off the top of the stove. Grab coldest beer for medicinal purposes. Turn off stove-top burner. Go back and watch fourth quarter.
Watch Bears break the hearts of thousands with really inept couching decision in final five minutes of the second overtime. Demand the coach’s head on platter. Think platter. Scratch head and think. Naw, it probably wasn’t important.
Start watching second game, this time with the hated Green Bay Packers. After more beer, try to remember why the word “platter” is still bouncing around inside your skull.
Finally, thinking of “platter” reminds you of loin in oven. Rush back to kitchen. Open now smoking oven and observe small, blackened, tough, shoe-like leathery substance that seems to have mysteriously teleported into your oven and traded places with your perfect loin. Remove small, blackened, tough, shoe-like substance from oven. Burn both hands again. Swear appropriately. Grab more liquid pain medicine. Apply internally.
Bend fork in meat. Bend meat thermometer in meat while testing for done-ness. Grab beer. Think. Go to garage and grab appropriate tool. Wash off the axe with dishwashing soap, then attempt to chop meat into small pieces on formerly perfect wood block table in kitchen. Remind self to sharpen axe before next use.
Greet Honey at door with hugs and kisses.
“No, Honey, I have not been drinking all day. I’ve been cooking. Seriously.”
Look shocked at Honey’s expression of horror as she rushes to kitchen. By now, the smoke and fumes have mostly departed through open kitchen window during dead of winter. Act shocked when Honey uses language more fit for British sailors fighting in 1840s war with France. Grab beer to drown your sorrows. Pout carefully.
Ask Honey that next time you want to make jerky, would Honey please help?
Honey asks, what happened to your perfect beef loin idea?
You say, “What beef loin idea?” Insist that you had always planned on making jerky, using your best straight poker face.
Growl at your former best friend, who is currently rolling on the floor, listening to your exchange with Honey. Reluctantly allow your former friend to use your phone to call his spousette so she may join in all the fun.
After call, growl again at soon to be ex-best friend and soon-to-be ex-wife continue to roll on floor together in hysterical laughter. Consider (privately) calling paramedics after you have finished throttling them.
Sit quietly, but proudly, with practiced, stoic expression as former best friend’s spousette enters your castle, only to see her listen to soon-to-be ex-wife and soon to be ex-best friend describe your efforts of cooking perfect loin to her. Turn the other cheek as they show her evidence on former perfect wood-block kitchen table. Increase volume for incredibly exciting Green Bay time out to hear really great ad from mortgage company.
Ignore former good friend spousette as she joins soon-to-be ex-wife and former best friend in a group roll on floor in front of TV. Politely offer them tissue to wipe their tears away.
Take abuse like a man as Honey, best friend, best friend’s spousette finally stop crying and shaking from extreme laughter. Remove the evidence, lest they begin with the hysterics again. Growl at former man’s best friend “Dog” who sniffs at former loin, yelps painfully, then turns tail and hides from former perfect loin.
Offer to buy the evil trio off by missing night game by eating out at restaurant with no sports TV on.
no easter traditions here. I’m more or less christian, but I live alone so there’s no family dinner involved.
I think my mom used to fix a ham for easter dinner. I don’t think she EVER cooked lamb, though I’ve come to like it since.
This particular Easter is (women’s) Final Four weekend, so I’ll be watching my team Sunday afternoon. Go Stanford!!
Easter tradition when I was growing up in the 1950s in South Carolina:
Ham, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, okra, succotash, green beans and ham fat, greens, sweet potatoes, sweet pickles, pickled onions-cauliflower-peppers, biscuits, cornbread, coconut cake, pineapple upside-down cake, apple pie. Oh yes, pepper vinegar for the greens.
Only some of the larger folk had a serving of everything.
that green stuff is delicious mint jelly, natural accompaniment of lamb. my family always had ham for Easter though. myself, I will be having the lamb and green stuff this year.
I’ve never found anyone even relatively neutral when it comes to the “green stuff.” It seems that people either love it or hate it. In my former days as a meat eater, I would use fresh mint in some rubs or marinades, but had a strong aversion to mint jelly. But I knew other people who wouldn’t eat roasted leg of lamb without it.
Easter dinner at my grandparents was always ham with raisin sauce, roast chicken, au gratin potatoes, at least three vegetables (beans and corn, for sure), tossed salad, relish tray, homemade bread, butter molded in the shape of a lamb, pie, kolachki. It was pretty good, and thinking about it really makes me miss my grandparents.
Nothing beats a ham roasted in dark beer then glazed with mixture of drippings and brown sugar, toss together the scalloped potatoes and spinach salad with apples and homemade dressing of mayo, honey & lemon juice and life is sweet.
We’re taking the kids and grandkids out to a very nice buffet, where eggs benedict and crab fingers are plentiful. Lots of non-meat dishes on the menu as well, which is really why our d-i-l wanted to go there. She dines vegan.
Go get a few Steak and Cheese subs.
Kielbasa, hard-boiled eggs, Pierogi, Babka, etc.
This was our Easter in my Ukrainian household. I am now a non-believing vegetarian, so whatever vegetables the m-i-l makes tomorrow.
go down to 9th st and pick up some easter bunnies and eat them. they are quite delish. i crock pot them with root veggies or wrap them in bacon since they have no skin, fry em, then finish them in a hot oven. serve with basmati rice that has been cooked in chicken broth and saffron, and topped with candied orange peel, raisins or currants and chopped pistachio nuts.
In my youth it was always ham, American-style — potatoes, overcooked veggie tokens, rhubarb-strawberry pie, maybe going all wild and crazy with a little Mogen David swill. Nobody ate lamb.
Now we either try to do something like fancy Indian vegetarian if the more vocal carnivores aren’t joining us, or if they are, splurging on a tiny unhormoned/antibioticed ham with green and yellow veggies and my special smashed potatoes with the first of the garden sage and lots of olive oil.