Ham and Hot Cross Buns for Easter
Food plays a prominent role in any holiday, and Easter is no exception. For many Americans, Easter dinner includes a hearty helping of ham. But few know the first recorded public blessing of Easter Ham occurred in the tenth century.

The pig has always been a symbol of good luck and prosperity among Indo-Europeans (hence the practice of saving money in a piggy bank). In Hungary, the highest card (ace) in card games is called "pig."

The age-old custom of eating pig or boar meat was probably brought to America by the English, Scandinavians, Germans, and Slavs, who still eat pork at Easter. In Transylvania, ham is wrapped in bread dough before being baked, and in Hungary, a meatloaf made of chopped pork, ham eggs, bread, and spices crowns the Easter Feast.

In addition to ham, pastries and bread also figure prominently in Easter fare all over the world. In Russia, paska is made of flour, cottage cheese, sugar, raisins, eggs and milk, and then molded and baked with a cross on each side.

In Germany and Austria, an Easter bread with raisins (stollen) is baked in twisted or braided strands. Poland's mazurki are sweet cakes made with honey and filled with nuts and fruit.

According to Sue Ellen Thompson's Holiday Symbols , hot cross buns have a long springtime history. First-century pagans worshiped the goddess Eastre, after whom Easter was named, and served her small cakes, often decorated with a cross, at their yearly spring celebration. Today, hot cross buns - small buns decorated with a sweet icing in the shape of a cross - are associated with Good Friday.

Wikipedia notes that Hot Cross Buns is also a simple song for teaching basic notes for learning various instruments. It developed out of an English street cry of bakers hawking their products. There are two versions of the tune. The simple version is played with the sequence A, G,F whilst the original more musical version uses the notes A, A,D, where the second A is one octave lower than the first.

(compiled from different Internet Sources by the Home and Famiily Team at Prince of Peace Church including http://www.christianitytoday.com and http://www.monasteryicons.com).