The Great Wildebeest Migration: Holiday food is life!

One way that people like to celebrate their holidays is with food.

Easter 2012 menu from NY's Osteria del Circo

Back in the USA, the Christmas holiday meals we prepared over the course of the season were strongly influenced by our families' heritage. Seven fishes for an Italian Christmas Eve (me and Vince). German crown roast of pork on Christmas Day (Vince) and borscht and chicken Kiev for a Russian Epiphany (me again.)

Easter cuisine was kind of up for grabs. We would typically go out for brunch in NYC as our main meal of the day followed by a light supper later that night at home in NJ. Could be to a French restaurant, Italian, Greek or our old standby, the Russian Tea Room - any cuisine that includes a strong Easter menu. Thanksgiving was without fail an all-American turkey. And Independence Day? That would be a barbeque at the shore on the Fourth of July.

If we were traveling during the Christmas or Easter holidays, we would naturally check out the local customs and fare. Like oysters for a French réveillon on New Year's Eve. Last year we were in Mozambique for Easter so Easter lunch consisted of king prawns straight off the fishing boats!

An Easter supper in our NJ dining room

... and another Easter supper in our NJ kitchen

This year for Easter we stayed put in Joburg. We had Easter Sunday lunch at Mosaic with Eat Out Chef of the Year Chantel Dartnall at the Orient Boutique Hotel in Pretoria. But before that, we indulged in some traditional South African Easter dishes which we made at home.

First on Good Friday, our one meal of the day was poached kingklip. Along with Ash Wednesday, Good Friday for Catholics is a day of abstinence which means in addition to being meatless, it is also limited to only one full meal for the whole day.

After our Good Friday dinner, we prepared pickled fish from the leftovers for Holy Saturday's dinner. The suggestion and recipe for this Cape Malay Easter classic came from a blog called Scrumptious South Africa. Award-winning social media strategist, cook, food writer, recipe developer, professional freelance journalist, editor and blogger Jane-Anne Hobbs Rayner (that's alot of hats!) also included a bonus fish paté recipe for the leftovers from the pickled fish dish. This recipe keeps on giving!

Eating pickled fish is a South African Easter tradition. Celebrated Cape Malay cookbook author and chef Cass Abrahams, of German and Xhosa extraction, was raised as a Christian in Johannesburg and converted to Islam when she married into the Cape Malay community. Growing up, her Christian family would eat pickled fish and hot cross buns for breakfast on Good Friday before going to a prayer service - a very long one in the Johannesburg City Hall - and have the same afterwards. Pickled fish with hot cross buns? Abrahams believes this cross-cultural tradition started in Cape Town's District Six where Muslims, Jews and Catholics once lived closely side by side.

On Easter morning we broke our fast with Jane-Anne's Hot Cross Buns Bread and Butter Pudding with Pears. It is an excellent way to use up those left-over Good Friday hot cross buns and it was delicious!

Why did I never think of using hot cross buns this way? It reminded me of Craig Claiborne's Egg Nog Challah French Toast recipe (NYT Cookbook, 1992) which we make every year on Christmas morning!

Of course the best part of making holiday foods from heritage recipes other than your own or eating the local food of a country you visit or live in during a holiday is that the food then becomes a part of your holiday tradition. We can make this hot cross bun recipe every Easter morning from now on and harken back to our first Easter breakfast in South Africa. And we will.