Why ham for easter tradition

Like many other traditions, it is simply a matter of practicality. For many households across the country, Easter morning starts the same way. Baskets overflowing with chocolate candies, jellybeans, and dyed eggs, a trip to church in our Easter hats, and then home for a big family meal. And for many households, the main course will be a sweet and succulent ham. Have you ever wondered why so many families eat ham on Easter Sunday when a large portion of the world still eats lamb? It is simply a matter of practicality and availability.

Shortly before slaughter in the fall, hogs would be fed things like apples and acorns that would greatly improve the flavor of the meat they would ultimately provide. As one specialty pork producer noted:. The tradition of acorn-fed pork goes back millennia. The oak nut was a diet staple because the pigs roamed and rooted about for acorns in the forests of Italy and Spain. Butchered in the fall, most hams were prepared and allowed to properly cure over the winter to further develop their flavor.

This was a particularly important food source this time of year in some parts of the world where the rest of the stored meat would have already been eaten, with little other meat of any real quality available.

This was the case in North America where the other traditional spring meat, lamb, was and still is less in vogue, which is also why eating ham on Easter in North America is much more popular than other regions where Easter is celebrated.

Conversely, in Europe, lamb is commonly served at Easter, and the tradition actually traces its origins to Jewish Passover feasts. Can anyone else see this as a mischief? I am Australian with Angle, Celtic, Norman and Jewish roots and am more than 70 years old and never have I come across the idea that eating ham is Easter tradition. We have Easter in autumn, not spring as we have Christmas in high summer not winter. Online ordering, delivery, curbside pickup and more will help keep customers safe as they strive to keep the flame of Easter tradition burning bright.

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It's just a sliver of the 50 pounds of pork we eat a year per capita. So, how did the U. Well, it's all a matter of practicality and taste. Read on to find out why most Americans eat ham on Easter , not lamb. The significance of lamb dates back to the times before Christianity. It's actually connected to the story of Passover, which is still celebrated by Jewish families today.

Accustomed to eating roast lamb on Passover, Jews who converted to Christianity continued the tradition at Easter. Travel to New Zealand or Eastern Europe, and you'll find that lamb—particularly in spring—is still plentiful, but it has never experienced the level of popularity in America that it sees elsewhere. Indeed, in American meat companies produced