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0 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? e-edition | subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW FBI: No toxic substances found so far in suspicious letters sent to Oregon sheriff's offices ... Emergency Services, July 28 ... I-5 crash kills one Medford woman, injures another ... FBI: No toxic substances found so far in suspicious letters sent to Oregon sheriff's offices ... Emergency Services, July 28 ... I-5 crash kills one Medford woman, injures another ... Page H. Onorato: What's on the menu for Easter? Comment By Page H. Onorato More Content Now MailTribune.com By Page H. Onorato More Content Now Posted Apr. 1, 2015 at 9:09 AM By Page H. Onorato More Content Now Posted Apr. 1, 2015 at 9:09 AM » Social News I love Easter. It’s a low-key holiday, no hustle-bustle, no gifts to buy or cards to send or trees to decorate. Plus, everything seems new and fresh on Easter Sunday, with bells ringing and lilies blooming. The sun always shone on the Easters of my youth. It meant new clothes from the inside-out: panties, petticoat, flowery dress with puffed sleeves and a velvet sash, straw hat with wee pocketbook to match, white gloves, black patent leather Mary Janes and lace hanky with a dime wrapped up in it for the collection plate. It meant a basket loaded with candy eggs and bunnies, a dainty corsage of baby roses that matched the new duds and, oh blessed day, Lent was finally over, and I could once again chew down on the beloved Double Bubble Gum I’d given up for six long weeks. We children, stuffed as we were on chocolate bunnies, weren’t particularly interested in Easter dinner. I vaguely recall a leg of lamb and the green beans cooked with fatback, without which the entire South would suffer from rickets and beriberi and other vitamin deficiencies, plus a potato something and the inevitable congealed salad. Oh, and when available, there was a whole shad, baked in a paper bag until its bones melted. It was a pretty typical Easter dinner for our part of world, if you trade the lamb for a baked ham. However, I found things a bit different when I went to live in Yankeeland. The beans were equally mushy but frozen and never met a hunk of hog fat. There would be mashed turnips, boiled onions and a slimy plateful of fiddlehead ferns if it had quit snowing long enough for someone to fetch them. Grape-Nut pudding or currant pie was the dessert of choice at New England tables, replacing the lemon pound cake and chess tarts to which I was accustomed. In Pennsylvania, our paschal tables were graced with cute little molded butter lambs, a Polish tradition. Our friends of Italian descent always served what they called Easter pie, a yummy concoction of cheeses, egg and assorted meats like prosciutto and pepperoni piled high in a flaky crust. Easter is celebrated with food around the world in Christian cultures, since it signifies the end of the austerity and fasting of Lent. Most areas feature eggs, of course, a symbol of fertility and new life since pagan times. And some version of Easter bread, shaped to look like a praying figure or marked with a religious symbol, is prevalent. In Greece, for example, eggs are dyed red in remembrance of the blood Jesus shed on the cross. Baklava is often served, a nut and honey pastry made with 33 layers of phyllo dough to represent Christ’s years of life on earth. As in most European countries, roast lamb is served just as it has been since even before Passover and the sacrificial lamb were celebrated. The Italians bake Florentine love knot cookies, lemon flavored and folded to look like a person in prayer. In Russia, you’ll find kulich, an egg bread with orange juice and almonds and pashka, a cheesecake-like dish made with cottage cheese and fruit and decorated with the Cyrillic letters XB, signifying Christ is risen. The French serve up gigot d’agneau (roast leg of lamb) with perhaps an onion soup or a quiche. Chocolate fish are side by side with chocolate bunnies and eggs. And in one area, a giant omelet made with 5,211 eggs and 110 pounds each of bacon, onion and garlic is cooked up for the whole village to enjoy. Down Under, rabbits are disliked because of their destructiveness, so Australians mold their chocolate into the shape of a long-eared rodent and call it an Easter Bilby. We always had hot cross buns at my house on Easter, an import from the United Kingdom. The sugary cross on top is a Christian symbol, although the cross existed long before the advent of Christ. On Sunday, my dinner table will hark back to my childhood with its leg of lamb, but I’ll bake a ham, too, just because it’s Easter. I’ll trade the greasy green beans for fresh asparagus and the Jell-O salad for something crisp and cool. Now if I could just add a kulich and some baklava and Mother’s baked shad, I’d be all set. Oh, and don’t forget a few chocolate fish. Lexington (N.C.) Dispatch correspondent Page H. Onorato is a retired teacher. By Page H. Onorato More Content Now MailTribune.com By Page H. Onorato More Content Now Posted Apr. 1, 2015 at 9:09 AM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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