hot cross buns

Upon walking into my parents’ home, the first thing my eye found was a box of hot cross buns on the counter.

It was odd for a few reasons—

One being the fact that my parents never buy processed food from the bakery section of the grocery store—as in, never.

The other being that I had no idea what a hot cross bun was but immediately knew that I’d played a nursery rhyme on the piano when I was little that was titled “hot cross buns”.

This led me to do two things:

1) eat a hot cross bun.

2) research about this funny, yet tasty, little pastry.

And here is what I found…

In many historically Christian countries, buns are traditionally eaten hot or toasted on Good Friday, with the cross standing as a symbol of the Crucifixion. They are believed by some to pre-date Christianity, although the first recorded use of the term "hot cross bun" was not until 1733.

It is believed that buns marked with a cross were eaten by Saxons in honour of the goddess Eostre (the cross is thought to have symbolized the four quarters of the moon);^[2] "Eostre" is probably the origin of the name "Easter". Others claim that the Greeks marked cakes with a cross, much earlier.

According to cookery writer Elizabeth David, Protestant English monarchs saw the buns as a dangerous hold-over of Catholic belief in England, being baked from the dough used in making the communion wafer. Protestant England attempted to ban the sale of the buns by bakers but they were too popular, and instead Elizabeth I passed a law permitting bakeries to sell them, but only at Easter and Christmas.

(that being copied and pasted directly from Wikipedia.com)

So that was my history lesson of the day…

And I must say, they are very yummy. Maybe next year I’ll attempt to make home-made hot cross buns.

Until then,

Happy Easter!