TN: Easter- Bdx, Tavel, MSR, Champagne

Thanks for the tasting notes as always Dale. Being Jewish, I always wondered why ham was traditional for Easter since lamb would have been the Paschal dish to serve at a seder (Last Supper). Kind of reminds me of bunnies and eggs. Understand the eggs but bunnies sure don't lay them. Then I always wondered why the egg was present on the seder plate other than some right of spring.

Lawrence, Egg represents life, a new life for the Hebrews leaving Egypt.

The Bunny represents promiscuity... :-)

Yes, I lobbied for lamb because I think of it as a sign of spring and it's a better red match.

Didn't have any idea where ham ttradition started,so did a little googling. Various theories: Ham was considered good luck in certain pagan societies, and was used to celebrate equinox. If picks were slaughtered at beginning of winter as feed ran out, hams reached the perfect point of curing in spring Ham was chosen to differentiate from non-Christian religions that ban it (Judaism and Islam). This seems least likely.

This is very likely....even in the days of the Spanish Inquisisition they used pork fat in a dessert after services, if you did not eat they assumed you were Jewish or Moor and you were slaughtered.

Seems very likely that this was done.

Religion has a way of being very divisive deliberatly in many cases.

Well, it may not have been completely unlikely. The reason the custom of passing a plate of charcuterie developed in Spain was due to the inquisition. Passing a plate of pork products would differentiate a Jew from a non-Jew as the assumed the Jew would not take them.

When I was in Spain, the old city of Palma-Mallorica, there is an old church, previously a Mosque.

They slaughtered Jews and Moslems alike if they did not eat a dessert that was known to be made with Pork Fat.

The Pope to create a more homogenius society that was Catholic made it illegal for Jews and Moslems to live in Spain. So what they did was force conversion. But if you practiced your faith at home, then you were not true to the church. The Pork Fat dessert was how they separated the jew/moslems that they felt were not really Catholic to ethnically cleanse their society as they wanted it.

Larry, I didn't mean it was unlikely as a motive, I'm well aware of the the deep-seated anti-Semitism that Christianity has promoted at various times. I just think that a tradition like this probably was more likely a holdover from pagan rituals (just like Christmas trees, mistletoe, etc). The average medieval Christian didn't fear contact with Jews, because Jews tended to be concentrated in ghettos or rare. The reason that the Spanish clergy and monarchy became so paranoid that they expelled and persecuted the Jews was that in the Moorish period Jews had become somewhat integrated within the society. I don't think it would have occurred to the average Northern European (where tradition started) that a Jew might try to pass himself off as a Christian.

This is part of my family history so I am very familiar with it. My family was at one time from Toledo Spain and became false catholics during the inquisition. They actually moved to Mexico as catholics and remained so until the first Mexican revolution when it then apparently became OK to be Jewish again. They had a family story of the passing of charcuterie as kind of family legend that my grandmother even related to me. Since the Jews were part of the moorish expansion into Spain and elsewhere in Europe, I think this was the origin of at least some of the hatred.

In what way were jew part of the moorish expansion into Spain? I have never heard of that and my family, similar to your was effected.