Please Eggsplain

Taking a bite into the Easter tradition.

Eggs. Bunnies. Chocolate. Huh?

Every Easter, we chomp through our choccie eggs and bunny rabbits without a thought. But how the heck do things that hatch, furry friends and dairy products relate to the holiday’s history? It’s time to sink our teeth into the topic – so the mystery can be cracked open.

Let’s start with the all-important egg. Since Easter celebrates the death and reincarnation of Christ, the egg has been embraced as a symbol of fertility and rebirth. The ritual’s roots stem back to Egyptian and Hindu mythology where the world began from an egg, but was mainly adopted by pagans in Western European churches. The first Easter eggs were of the duck and hen variety, tszujed up at home in bright colours with charcoal and vegetable dye. The Eastern Europeans pimped theirs out in gold and silver, whereas the Greeks and Middle Eastern Christians splashed them in red, to symbolise Jesus’ blood.

Egg-shaped toys came next in the 17th and 18th centuries as Easter gifts for the kiddies. But the award for the most blinged-up egg creation goes to Carl Faberge’s jewelled pieces, made in the 19th century for Russian royalty which are now rare museum features.

So how does chocolate enter the equation? Chocolate Easter eggs’ sweet start is owed to the Germans and French in the early 19th century. It wasn’t such a smooth transition though, as mass-production moulding methods didn’t exist. Since the first eggs were solid, they had to be hollowed out manually. Talk about a struggle.

Luckily the Dutch invented a press shortly after which separated the cocoa bean from cocoa butter, plus the Cadbury Brothers concocted pure cocoa. These two elements merged to make masses of cocoa butter – the trick behind chocolate moulding. And voila! The modern Easter egg was hatched. And sold in a supermarket near you.

Now hopping over to the bunny beginnings.
As rabbits and hares often have multiple births, they’re a symbol of fertility too. So it’s said that in Germany, stories were told of an ‘Easter Hare’ laying eggs in the grass for children to find. Which explains the craziness behind kids hunting around their yards for chocolate eggs on Easter Sunday.

So there you have it. The food bit of Easter explained. Basically it’s all about birth symbols and soft mammals, with some chocolatey goodness thrown in for good measure.

By Jenna Chaitowitz

Image:http://www.flickr.com/photos/rbh/126537989/in/photostream/