Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Easter and “La Mona de Pascua”

In Spain, people not only celebrate Easter, they celebrate the whole Holy Week previous to Easter as well as the Monday after. It’s kind of like their spring break. My adorable host family (2 grandparents) took me to lunch with their two sons and families and their one cute seven-year-old grandson for Easter Monday. The Monday after Easter is a national holiday, and I got the impression that it was part Easter and part Godparents’ Day. The Catalan tradition is that the godparents give their godchildren a cake made of chocolate called “La Mona.” After eating a gigantic delicious multi-course meal similar to that of Thanksgiving, the godparents brought out La Mona decorated with chocolate Easter eggs, feathers, little pompom chickies, and a chocolate hen. It was quite the concoction as the godmother made the cake with three layers of chocolate-one white, one milk, and one dark. As opposed to the U.S. where dinner is the largest meal of the day, in Spain, lunch is the largest meal of the day with multiple courses and dessert. My host family always offers me more and more food and drink(wine…coffee…things I don’t normally drink in the U.S. of course). I always have to politely keep telling them that I’m full so they stop giving me more food! Somehow the Spaniards eat all this food while maintaining a pretty normal body shape. Guess it’s all the walking through the city.

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