5 meals to celebrate Easter
Spain is a country of gastronomy, rich and very varied.
Easter has established, for centuries, some food consumption patterns that, although nuanced by an increasingly secular society, have left a residue and recipes that, today, are one more attraction than those offered by our Earth.
The traditional cuisine of Easter was based on the observance of the recommendation not to eat meat on Good Friday, but also on certain days of Lent, so the most characteristic recipes are made without this component.
In this article, we are going to provide five typical dishes of these dates.
Vigil Potaje
Easter is a period that can still coincide with frost and snow in the interior of the country, so the pottage has been a good option, as well as economical. The most common was to prepare it with vegetables from the garden, chickpeas, grated egg and cod, which provided proteins as meat substitutes, in addition to being in the past a cheaper ingredient in its salty version. Although presumably of Castilian origin, the truth is that its consumption was already widespread throughout the country in the mid-nineteenth century.
Cod fritters
As indicated, cod was one of the most consumed foods during these dates. The cod fritter is easy to prepare, as it only requires flaked cod mixed with other ingredients and then fried. It was popular in Madrid since the second half of the XNUMXth century.
French toast
In the culture and traditions of Holy Week in Castilla, the quintessential sweet is torrija, documented as early as the XNUMXth century. The base is bread that is soaked in milk, varnished with egg and later fried. Its preparation was easy and cheap, and in the last century it became common in Castilian taverns during this time.
Mona Easter
In Catalonia and other regions of northern Spain and Levante, Easter Monday is a holiday, and tradition says that godparents have to buy their godson a monkey, which originally consisted of a cake with a chocolate egg, although it is important to note that every year pastry chefs make more complex preparations. The caloric abundance of this food was the way to signal that the period of abstinence implied by Easter had ended.
pestiños
Pestiño is the most characteristic sweet of Holy Week in Andalusia, and is related to similar sweets originating in Morocco. It is documented for the first time in the XNUMXth century, and consists of a flour dough that is fried in olive oil and then covered with honey.