wednesday, march 26th, 2008

I made these chewy-sweet, cinnamon robed candies the day before St. Patrick's Day but since I foolishly scheduled a painful spinal procedure on the big day, candy didn't seem to be the remedy for the pain that followed and I instead turned to the most obvious elixir, a few pints of Guinness. My poor Irish potato candies sat neglected in the kitchen for the next week and I nearly forgot all about them until I caught a friend visiting for over the Easter holiday popping them one after another into his mouth, while I slaved over the bisteeya I promised to make him. "These are delicious," he said as he tossed another back, "Easter egg candy makes so much more sense than a basket of hard boiled eggs no one ever eats."

"Thanks," I replied, not letting on that they were supposed to resemble potatoes, not eggs, "I just thought I'd try something different this year."  My poor, rejected, but apparently extremely versatile, candy were transformed from lowly potatoes to sweet golden eggs and my contended friend, who was buzzing with an intense sugar high by the time we sat down to dinner, was none the wiser.

Considering that I boiled a half dozen eggs for my bisteeya, it was Easter Sunday, and my friend over-indulged in an entire bowl of candy he believed were intended to be eggs, I thought more than I ever wanted to about eggs last weekend and wondered why they are so inextricably bound to the Easter holiday. The obvious answer, and in this case the correct one, is because the egg is a symbol of renewal and new life, a theme celebrated by both Christians on Easter Sunday and in the ancient pagan rituals from which Easter was inspired (perhaps I'm giving away too much information but this is my belief and I'm sticking to it).

The word Easter is derived from the Nordic words that symbolize rebirth and growth Eostur, Ostara and Eastar and the pagan Germanic goddess Eostre, a symbol of the sun and awakening. The egg as a symbol of life has been celebrated for millennia by many different ancient cultures including the Egyptians, Persians, Hindus and Phoenicians, all of whom weave into their creation stories the origins of the world springing forth from an egg.

The tradition of coloring eggs at Easter is shared by many cultures around the world but its origins are difficult to trace. The first book to mention colored eggs is over five centuries old and there is a record in the household accounts of the English king Edward I for an expenditure of 18 pence to cover the cost of 450 gold leafed eggs intended as Easter gifts for members of the court. In medieval times, colored Easter eggs were also gifted to peasants.
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