Breaking the Easter Fast

Easter baskets awaiting blessing on Holy Saturday.

The blessing of the Easter foods is a tradition handed down in our family through generations of Polish Faithful. We take our baskets to Church for this special service to have them blessed, so that our meal will strengthen our bodies as well as our souls. We ask God’s blessing not just for Easter but also for the entire year. 

On Holy Saturday, our family loads up the car with a half dozen large wicker baskets filled with the delicacies in which we will partake for our Easter breakfast, known as “Swieconka”. (We pronounce it “sh-ven-soon-ka”.) At the Church, hundreds of colorful baskets are laid before the altar, and the aroma of Polish sausage and fresh baked goods fills the Sanctuary. Together, we sing and pray. And as he gives the blessing, the parish priest reminds us of why we observe this tradition.

The aroma of sausage and baked goods fill the church.

Traditionally during the season of Lent, families abstained and fasted from sweets and meats. While fasting meant to not partake in certain foods at all, abstaining meant to limit oneself to smaller portions. So when Resurrection Sunday arrives, it is truly a day of rejoicing and feasting. Thus the first meal on Easter morning truly exemplifies the phrase “breaking the fast.”

The meal typically consists of meats, eggs and butter, and a variety of breads and baked sweets.

The meats are cooked the day before, and are served cold on Easter morning. This tradition is reminiscent of our Jewish brothers’ Sabbath celebration. Because no work was to be done on the Sabbath—including cooking—foods were prepared a day in advance and eaten cold at breakfast.

The types of meat included in our Swieconka basket are Polish sausage and ham, and occasionally a pork shoulder roast. In early Polish history, there were various class levels of population, where the richest ate the choicest cuts of meat, and the peasants consumed what was left. Since Easter is considered the Holiest of Christian holidays, every family reserved the best cut of meat possible for the celebration, even among the poorest of the poor. Since pork was more abundant—and less expensive—than lamb, the sausage, ham and roast became the tradition for many Easter meals.

Smiling Jesus Easter egg

The dairy products include hard boiled eggs—both peeled and colored—and butter in the form of a little lamb. The eggs represent new life: the colored eggs represent the renewal of the earth at springtime. Some colors having significant meaning: red for the precious Blood of Christ, purple for His royal Kingship, blue for the sky where He ascended after His Resurrection, and so on. The peeled eggs—out of their hard shell—represent Jesus’ transformed and perfected risen body from the confines of the tomb.

The butter signifies the work of human hands and the flavor of life. It is generally in the shape of a lamb because the Israelites ate the sacrificed lamb, whose blood was used to mark their doorposts, at the first Passover in Egypt. Just as God delivered them from the bondage of slavery in Egypt, so too does Jesus, the “Lamb of God”, deliver generations of Christian Faithful from the bondage of the slavery of sin.

Mom's butter lamb: too cute to eat!

Mom makes the butter lambs herself. She makes what one priest called a “flock” of lambs. She makes them one by one, and details each lamb with a curly “wool” texture, peppercorn eyes and nose, and a ribbon around its neck. After the butter lambs have been blessed in Church, Mom distributes them to family, friends and neighbors for their Easter meal, thereby insuring they are blessed through the year as well. I call it part of her “ministry.”

Typically, a “blessing” bread and a lamb-shaped cake are found in our family’s Swieconka basket. The baked goods have roots in Jewish tradition as well. We recall the “bread of haste” the Hebrews ate at the Passover, and the “manna” from Heaven by which God sustained them on their 40-year journey through the desert. The blessing bread reminds us that Jesus broke bread with His Disciples at the Last Supper. At Easter especially, we remember that He is the “Bread of Life” for us, sent down from Heaven. We know that God is with us and will always sustain us.

The Jewish tradition of a sacrificial lamb for the atonement of one’s transgressions is represented here with the lamb-shaped cake. The sacrificial lamb was to be perfect and “spotless”, therefore the lamb cake is generally made of white cake and decorated with white frosting. For Christians, Jesus is our Sacrificial Lamb. We believe He died for our sins, so that we may be worthy to enter into God’s Heaven, and that our hearts are properly prepared for His Spirit to dwell within.

In a more ambitious mode: I decorated TWO Lamb cakes!

A more recent tradition for our family is the making of cupcakes, decorated to look like little lamb heads. This more or less developed from the need to use the excess cake batter that did not fit in the mould for the lamb cake. Nothing goes to waste!

The Holy Saturday Basket blessing reminds us that food is the bounty from the land, all given to us by God’s graciousness. The preparation is the work of our hands, which we dedicate to God and ask His blessing on us for the coming year.

At that Passover meal—His Last Supper—Jesus released us from the restrictions of Torah, allowing us to eat pork products and breads made with yeast. As a result, there is plenty of food for our Easter celebration: breakfast, lunch and dinner. In fact, Swieconka food can last all week long! We are assured that at God’s banquet in His Kingdom, there are delicious foods of every kind that we may enjoy in abundance. And with every tasty bite of our Easter Breakfast, we know God is with us—here and now.

Inspired by God’s “Comfort Food”.