Easter Monday
Today is Easter Monday, a holiday in England (and in medieval times it included the Tuesday after Easter and was known as Hocktide). Easter, the most sacred holiday of the Christian church and now generally celebrated by way of chocolate and cute iddle bunnies, has ancient and strange traditions in England and the rest of the old world, being one of those holidays morphed uneasily into pagan traditions. The gorging on eggs and other delicacies represents the end of Lent, a time of fasting and contemplation, but the eggs themselves suggest a pagan sensibility of fertility and the renewal of spring. Other than the chocolate, hot cross buns, yeasted, spiced, and with a paste cross on top, are a delicious English tradition. You can find a recipe here . According to Elizabeth David, the woman who re-invented cookery in England (our answer to Julia Child): "Bath buns, hot cross buns, spice buns, penny buns, Chelsea buns, currant buns--all these small, soft, plump, sweet, fermented'