WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NY - We have entered the "Week of the Egg." It began Palm Sunday, which hatched, according to the post-gazette.com, "the single biggest week of egg buying."
This eggs-traordinary souffle of activity results from the close relationships among Passover, the Christian Holy Week (which begins Palm Sunday), and age-old rites of spring. These begin on the vernal equinox and beget a two-month cycle of festivities featuring "that basic and vital of all foods."
The egg has long symbolized life, spring, fertility, birth and resurrection. Practices combining pagan and modern spiritual representations of nature's "miracle food," such as Passover and Easter eggs, have become so intertwined that it is difficult to unscramble which came first.
Many resources offer informative, interesting, fun and downright bizarre coverage of natures "perfect food." I've selected a few for your edification and entertainment:
- All eggs are not created equal: learn the pecking order and how to choose a good egg
- Bizarre Stuff You Can Make In Your Kitchen/Bizarre Yolks: Read and try "Stupid egg tricks"
- Easter, Passover, Spring and Egg Salad Week: Learn from the American Egg Board everything you could possibly want to know about "the incredible, edible, egg," its roles in cultures and diets worldwide, and ways to decorate and cook it
- eat egg vietnam: this Google search yields results that describe egg dishes (such as hot vit lon) that my Uncle Ken encountered during his Air Force tour of duty in Vietnam and that his wife, Aunt Kim, may have served in her restaurant on the American west coast
- egg cookbook: this Google search yields a flock of cookbooks that come in handy when preparing a seder, Easter dinner, spring feast or any other occasion when eggs are eaten
- Seussville.com: is the primary purveyor of products by Doctor Seuss entitled Green Eggs and Ham
- Every Day's a Holiday...in April: read Ian Makay's review of the historical, cultural and spiritual roles of eggs throughout the ages
- 57 FAQs about Odds and Ends (The Astronomy Cafe): Can you really stand an egg on end during the spring equinox (and if so, only then)? Crack open the mystery; learn the eggs-act truth.
Happy holidays!
Image ("Rabbit"): accessed April 16, 2006 at www.aeb.org/KidsAndFamily/easter/Easter_Egg_Salad.htm.###
