KOCHI: Think of Easter celebrations, and Easter food holds a prime place.Without ‘kallappam’, beef and all the non-vegetarian delicacies, including various preparations of fish and meat products, no Easter day has perhaps passed in Kerala. Traditionally, Christians in the state have always celebrated the festival with great fervour. For, after the 40-day lent, Easter is a day of happiness, ascension and of renewed hopes and aspirations. For many, pork and other traditional dishes too are an essential part of Easter festivities. Interestingly, catering services also provide Easter food these days.
While the practice was earlier restricted to the ‘Onam’ season, catering to Easter food seems to have worked. And the success of the business model is drawing more caterers into the fold. Now, one just has to place an order and hang back at home, and the food will be delivered at the doorstep. Packages are available even for small numbers. For a family of five, the cost ranges from Rs 2,000 to Rs 2,500.
“We approach the Easter day celebrations with great relish,” says Lovely Mathew, a resident of Alappuzha working with a bank in Kochi.“The lent is broken after the mass in a church on Easter day. We prepare everything beforehand and break the fast with a simple breakfast including appam and non-veg curry. The breaking of lent holds great importance as we are fasting and denying ourselves during the 40 days. It is a period of repentance, purgation and prayers.”
Needless to say, the butchers and meat shops are seeing a rise in sales. The markets, almost non-existent on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, spring to life late on Saturday as the Easter buyers begin queuing up before shops. Apart from butchers, the bakers in the city have people coming in for Easter eggs. While the ‘eggs’ are not mass produced, they are available in many of the bakeries across the city for those who do follow this tradition.
The experiments with Easter eggs
Not as popular as it is in the West, the tradition of Easter eggs does have many takers in the state. The novelty of the concept has increased its popularity here. Eggs are painted colourfully, especially with red which also has certain beliefs attached to it. One can see Easter eggs made of chocolate and cream in the display boxes of bakeries. Some of the bakers even have gifts for the kids which makes the ‘eggs’ fly off the shelf.
“We make a certain number of Easter eggs,” says Daisy Varghese, a retired teacher-cum-baker.
“It’s not a bakery per se. Rather we make the eggs for our church and distribute it to those who place orders. The number keeps increasing every year and the confectioneries used in the egg also change. At times, we experiment with what we put inside the egg.”