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Eggs are for celebrating  Can you match these holidays or occasions?
1-F - Lent  Each year, Lent is the 40 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter, except for Sundays. Christians believe that Christ fasted for 40 days before he was crucified. To honor Christ's sacrifice, early Christians ate no meat, eggs, milk, cheese or cooking fats for 40 days during Lent. Today some Christians now fast only on Fridays and give up only meat. Instead of meat, Lent meals are often based on eggs, fish and vegetables. There are so many different ways to make eggs that Lenten meals can be different every day. 2-C - Spring and Easter  March, April and May are spring months. Easter Sunday is sometimes in March, but is in April most years. During springtime and at Easter, it's a tradition for people of many different lands to decorate eggs. Many centuries ago, the decorated eggs stood for the return of new life to the earth when winter turned into spring. To Christians, the eggs later came to represent Christ's Resurrection from the tomb at Easter. Eggs are still used as a symbol of rebirth today. Both children and adults have fun decorating eggs and eggs are used in games, like egg hunts and egg rolls, too. 3-E - Egg Salad Week  Egg Salad Week is the full week right after Easter Sunday every year. In many, many U.S. homes, families decorate hard-cooked eggs for Easter. After they're cooked, hard-cooked eggs should be kept in the refrigerator and used before a week is over. The week after Easter, many people turn their decorated hard-cooked eggs into egg salad sandwiches. If egg salad isn't your favorite, you can celebrate Egg Salad Week by making deviled eggs or another hard-cooked egg recipe that you like. 4-A - National Egg Month  May is National Egg Month. More eggs are sold in America during the Easter season - usually in April - than at any other time of the year. Then, sales go down, but the hens keep on laying eggs. After Easter, because the supply of eggs is normal but the demand for eggs is less, their price ordinarily goes down. Starting in May and running through the summer, eggs are usually an even better bargain than they are the rest of the year. Through the American Egg Board and other groups, the American egg industry celebrates National Egg Month in May to remind home cooks how good eggs are. Egg farmers want cooks to remember that eggs are nutritious to eat and simple to make in many different ways. . . plus eggs are especially easy to afford from May until the end of summer. 5-D. World Egg Day  The second Friday of October is World Egg Day each year. Eggs are popular all over the earth. People of many different cultures eat and enjoy eggs. There's even an International Egg Commission (IEC) that holds meetings for egg industry people from around the world. The IEC members declared World Egg Day so all the egg farmers on the globe could tell cooks about eggs at the same time. Although most people enjoy eggs, they're sometimes served a little differently from country to country. For example, an omelet might be filled with ham and cheese in America. In France, though, an omelet might be filled with white asparagus and topped with Hollandaise sauce. A Spanish omelet is called a tortilla and often has potatoes inside. An Italian omelet is a frittata and all its filling ingredients are cooked right along with the eggs. Chinese egg foo yung patties are small, thick omelets filled with bean sprouts and other vegetables. In Japan, very thin omelets are cut into strips and tossed into soup - just like noodles. If you've never had any kind of omelet except an American one, World Egg Day might be a good time to try an omelet or a different egg dish from another land. 6-B - Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas & New Year's Eve  The American celebration of Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday of November each year. Christmas is December 25 and New Year's Eve is December 31. The date of Hanukkah changes each year but is usually around Thanksgiving and Christmastime. All these times are happy occasions when families and friends celebrate together. And, when families celebrate, eggs are often part of the fun. In fact, the two-month period of November and December is the second best time of the year for egg sales. Why do you think this is true?  Egg sales are high at the end of the year for two reasons. First, lots of people visit their families and friends this time of year and they eat breakfasts and brunches together. Eggs are often a big part of breakfast and brunch menus. Eggs are also used in many side dishes - even the stuffing in the Thanksgiving turkey. Eggs are a major ingredient in the eggnog you might drink for a New Year's toast or during the rest of the holiday season, too. Second, holiday time is baking time. Many traditional recipes made for celebrations have eggs in them. Although it doesn't look eggy, a Thanksgiving pumpkin pie is really a baked custard pie flavored with pumpkin. Eggs also play an important role in many cookies, cakes and other Christmas and Hannukah treats. You can find out how many eggs are in your holiday celebrations by asking family cooks if you can see their traditional recipes. Then, just add the eggs up. Happy counting! |
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