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Easter is here!
And with Easter all the wonderful traditions and rites that accompany this special moment of the year... let's start with a sweet tradition :)
It's a rich brioche-like breads (often braided) known by various Greek names that represent three major holidays for Greeks: Easter, Christmas and New Year's. There are many local varieties of these festive breads, based on milk, flour, eggs, sugar, yeast, butter, and a flavoring which can be mahlab, Chian mastic or cardamom.
The butter is added after kneading: the dough is stretched, brushed with melted butter, folded and stretched again repeatedly, until all the butter is incorporated. The result of this technique is that the baked bread separates easily into strands. A good tsoureki should be soft, moist and fluffy, yet stringy and chewy.
The reason we braid the tsoureki is to symbolize the Resurrection of Life that comes with springtime.
The wedding of this symbolism to the Orthodox Christian Calendar and the figure of Jesus Christ is not a coincidence. The tradition of plaiting bread is old; it predates the arrival of the Gospel among the Greeks. The ancient, pre-Christian Greeks also baked braided breads (στρεπτικιος αρτος).
From the dark and gloom of winter, we emerge into an increasingly illumined and awakening world that presages the coming of the summer sun, which gives us hope for the harvest to follow.
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