Traditional Greek Easter Lunch
Easter in Greece is the biggest celebration of the year and at no other time is such an emphasis placed on the great feasting which takes place. Hopefully the family may have a goat or lamb which can be fed up well in preparation for Easter so that it is quite usual in rural areas to see the main centerpiece of a Greek Easter dinner gambolling around the olive groves just a few days before the feasting takes place on Sunday afternoons.
Easter dinner celebrations actually commence after the midnight church services of the Saturday night when a special meal consisting of Greek Easter bread, tsoureki, red dyed hard boiled eggs, and a special soup known as mayiritsa soup.The latter is a lemon soup which comprises all the innards of the goat or lamb which will be the centerpiece of the Sunday dinner.
Careful not to waste any part of the animal, perhaps as a remembrance of leaner harder times, the intestines, heart and lungs will be cooked up into this delicious soup which is hugely popular with the Greeks. The red dyed eggs, or kokkina avga, are meant to symbolise the blood of Christ and are served on both the Saturday night and on the Sunday.
The preparations for the large family gatherings which form to eat the traditional Easter lunch, begin early in the morning, as the goat or lamb are prepared to go onto the open air spit to be slowly cooked for hours over hot coals. The family members take turns in rotating the spit. Meanwhile a smaller roll of intestines is also prepared to be spit roasted alongside the animal.
In the kitchen the preparations for the rest of the feasting will be going on. As well as the roast meat there will be other foods presented to compliment the meat. One will find fresh olive oil on the table to be poured over the tsoureki bread, jugs of wine alongside bottles of ouzo, and platters of feta cheese.
The famous Greek salads comprising green peppers, tomatoes, red onions and olives, served within a dish of oil with a large slice of feta atop, will be placed along the table, not forgetting of course additional bowls of local olives.
The traditional Greek Easter dinner will commence at some time in the afternoon and the food will be consumed at a leisurely pace as the celebrations are enjoyed. The food is praised and it is certain to be guaranteed that at the end of the feasting the meat from the spit will all have disappeared.
