By Carol Fisher-Linn
I received a brand-new butter dish made in Poland from my husband today. I broke the bottom of my old one and butter just doesn’t taste the same unless dispensed from my Polish dish. And this one is large enough to hold a traditional Easter butter lamb. A trip to the Broadway Market is out of the question this year, but I have found Easter butter lambs in local grocery stores. Look for them. They make your holiday table so much more festive. As TEVYE extolled in Fiddler on the Roof … it’s “Tradition!”
Easter is a good and bad thing all rolled into one. If someone has recently died in your family who would normally sit at the table, an empty place setting may give acknowledgment and reason to invite and to toast the spirit of that person. It is a perfect time to share good memories. Easter week (April 2 -9) has a sadness attached to it as we consider the passion and death of that beautiful man named Jesus Christ. Good Friday brings us to our knees as we visualize his suffering and his long walk toward the culmination of his purpose as a human being. We are reminded in ThoughtCo that Easter, not Christmas, has always been the central Christian feast. As St. Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians (15:14), “If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.” For Christians, Christ’s Resurrection is the proof of His Divinity. And a promise of eternal life.
Easter is a delectable time of feasting. In my Polish tradition that means a trip to the Broadway Market for the usual Easter fare: pickled herring, ham, kielbasa, pierogi, the butter lamb, decorated eggs, horseradish, rye bread, kruschicki pastries, home-made “kucha” (coffee cake) or lamb shaped cake. A święconka basket (mixed foods that are blessed for Easter morning consumption) consisting of small portions of the pending Easter feast (including chocolate) wrapped in linen and festooned with bows and flowers is taken by the children for an Easter blessing. There is a mixture of feelings here for the child: the basket is solemnly carried down the center aisle and the child kneels at the communion rail. In our Church, a life-size crucifix was propped sideways at that railing covered with purple cloth. Emotions collided as we thought of the happy Easter celebrations and yet were very aware of the meaning of that shrouded crucifix inches away from our basket as the priest blessed our baskets and our heads using the kropidło (small brush) dipped in holy water.
Western New York has a distinctive treasure in the Broadway Market (999 Broadway). Begun by a group of immigrant citizens on a city-donated parcel of land, it has been in continuous operation since 1888. The market provided (and still does) a community meeting place and access to traditional food, bringing the Old World feeling home to the residents of Buffalo’s east side. It has had many changes (i.e., much of it was outdoors when I was growing up) but it has never lost the old-fashioned concept of selling farm-fresh, unusual, exotic, and ethnic foods. Check out their website at broadwaymarket.org. Their phone is 716.893.0705.
In Western New York, you can’t have Easter without Dyngus Day (Easter Monday). The meaning behind Dyngus Day is one of new beginnings and starting over. Here, I share a quote from the Wall Street Journal several years back which may explain the huge resurgence of the holiday parades and festivities: “young people were looking to reclaim some of their Polish heritage, or just looking for an excuse to shake off the winter months with vodka and pierogis …” It’s a time for boys to “flirt” with girls by dousing them with water. Ladies, wear raincoats and carry painted “ransom eggs.”
This celebration attracts thousands of visitors to Buffalo to celebrate spring and display Polish pride (like St. Paddy’s Day, everyone is Polish on Dyngus Day). Started in 1961 by the Chopin Singing Society, its members will once again be part of the celebration at St. Stanislaus Church. The 17th annual parade beginning at Memorial Drive at 5:30pm will proceed through the heart of Historic Poliona District, moving west along Broadway to Fillmore – 1.2 miles, passing the Broadway Market. For complete details of festival updates go to www.dyngusday.com. Happy Easter and Śmigus-dyngus, everyone.