France, with its deep roots in Catholicism, celebrates Easter with vigour. And it will be no different at the Chateau Lalinde. As has been my custom for many years, friends and family are all invited for a big festive Champagne Breakfast on Easter Sunday. All the preparations for a full house are already underway -- a big spring cleaning, rooms made ready, fresh flowers everywhere, a full larder and menus planned, and of course, eggs being hand painted for all the guests. The chateau is now almost ready for the big celebration this weekend!
The French, being predominantly Chatholic -- even in this hotbed of Protestanism(!), know how to celebrate a holiday such as Easter. First of all, there will be a three-day weekend for everyone. Then it is also the spring holidays for schools, and of course, Pâques marks the beginning of the "high" season, when tourists come out of the woodwork and hotel prices rise accordingly. A series of holidays ---starting with this three-day Easter weekend, continues into May, with a trio of three-day weekends that month.
Church bells ring joyfully during the year but stop ringing on the Thursday before Good Friday. I can hardly imagine what tomorrow will be like -- as I am surrounded by no less than four sets of ringing bells! Cloche volant or Flying Bells are another important part of the French Easter tradition. French Catholics have a tradition that on Good Friday all the church bells in France miraculously fly to the Vatican in Rome. They carry with them all the misery and grief of those who mourn Jesus' crucifixion on that day. These flying French bells then return on Easter morning in time for the celebration of Jesus' resurrection. They of course bring with them lots of chocolate and eggs which are left in the garden for the children to collect in their baskets when they wake up in the morning. In keeping with the tradition, French church bells do not ring from Good Friday to Easter morning. They will be silent for three days while people remember the death of Jesus. But then, on Easter Sunday morning, the bells ring out again and when people hear the bells it is customary kiss and hug one another -- as if the French need an excuse to do that!
The concept of the Easter Bunny is known here and used, but it is the bells that bring the eggs, and thus one is more likely to find chocolate shaped bells in the shops. Interestingly, the French begin their Easter season several weeks before Easter actually begins. They do decorate their shop windows in a festive collection of white and dark chocolate rabbits, chickens, bells and also fish -- but the bells and fish are the important part of the French Easter tradition.
However, I grew up with the Easter Bunny hiding eggs on Easter Sunday, and the custom will continue in the Chateau. I had a long discussion with Brigitte in the Post Office the other day -- whilst paying a king's ransom on behalf of the Easter Bunny to send off a box of chocolate Easter Eggs to Nici in Sydney, wondering whether the Australian Customs will be so mean as to stop the gift of the eggs from the Bunny reaching her, as they have done every year since her birth 26 years ago.......
Besides the sweet treats, traditional Easter fare is spring lamb or baby goat served with a harvest of new spring vegetables including fèves, asparagus, peas, and artichokes. The tradition is for families to gather together for the five or six hour Sunday dinner.
An old French custom was a contest of rolling raw eggs down a gentle slope--the surviving egg was the victory egg and symbolized the stone being rolled away from the tomb. As for kids, they played a game in which one had to throw eggs up in the air. The first one to drop it lost.
French Easter fish are called Poisson d'Avril. Chocolate fish are available in most shops. The real Poisson d'Avril, however, makes his appearance on April 1st as French children delight in playing a kind of 'April Fool's' trick. They stick a paper fish onto the back of as many adults as possible--most of whom are quite tolerant. The children then run away yelling Poisson d'Avril! which of course means "April Fish". This tradition dates back several centuries. One account suggests that it has evolved from a fish trick where the innocent person was sent off to the market to purchase freshwater fish when it was not in season.
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