Ethnic Easter meals help maintain ties

For some local folks, the tastes associated with Easter go beyond chocolate bunnies and marshmallow Peeps.

For Tony Santinello of Huntley, it's all about the chicken and the egg.

More to the point, Easter means a chicken-shaped loaf of bread with an egg baked inside, lovingly prepared by his mother, Vita.

"She would serve Italian sausage and eggs baked inside bread dough, and for each of the kids, she'd make a loaf in the shape of a chicken and put a raw egg inside it that would cook as the bread baked. Even now, my boys are 25, 28 and 35 -- and she still makes one for each of them," said Santinello.

Most years, Crystal Lake resident Gerda Lawin and her mother work together to cook an Easter feast that includes favorite dishes reflecting the family's German heritage.

The main course is a smoked pork tenderloin known as Kassler. Side dishes include German dumplings with croutons inside, and side dishes of red cabbage and apples. Desserts are more American, she said, but recall the years when the family ran a bakery in Wisconsin.

"My mom makes a lamb cake with coconut. We picked that up when we had the bakery and made a lot of lamb cakes and cross cakes," said Lawin.

For Northfield resident Agnes Byrne, Easter meals reflect not only her parents' Irish and Italian background, but her mother's upbringing in New York City.

"She would go from neighborhood to neighborhood for different things, so some of those ended up in our Easter dinner. For breakfast she would always make eggs with Kolbasa sausage, which is Polish, and serve it with an Easter bread that I think is an Irish tradition," Byrne said.

She describes the Easter bread as a sweet dough braided to resemble a wreath. Colored eggs are set into the curves, and the whole thing is covered with an egg-based glaze.

"It's very colorful when you put it on the table," she said.

At Eastertime, ham, lamb, turkey, crown roasts, sausage and even egg rolls all have a place at the family table.

And a number of local shops and ethnic grocers are happy to help make the meal special.

At the Butcher on the Block in Lake in the Hills, owner Tom Yucius said that most of his special Easter orders are for hams, various cuts of lamb and crown roasts.

"Those are our big sellers, but we also have lots of people ordering different kinds of sausage," he said.

The sausages -- Italian, Polish and Lithuanian -- are used in brunch dishes, in stuffings placed inside crown roasts and turkeys and as a side dish served with sauerkraut.

While lamb is closely linked to the religious aspects of the Easter celebration and to the Jewish Passover, which is also celebrated in the spring, many cooks are nervous about preparing it.

Yucius said that years ago, lower-quality lamb cuts and even goat's meat were sold, which prompted cooks to serve the meat with mint jelly.

"It was to cover up the smell," he said.

He said a better choice is young domestic spring lamb, sold with the bone cut loose but tied in place to enhance the taste of the roast.

"They still get the flavor from the bone, but it's simpler for the customer to remove," he said.

He prepares lamb for his own family's Easter feast by rubbing the meat with a mixture of garlic and rosemary. The meat sits in the refrigerator for two days and then is roasted on the grill.

"The first year we did it, everyone loved it. Then we told them it was lamb," he said.

Although Filipinos eat lots of seafood, by the end of Lent most are ready to enjoy meat, said Edgar Dequilla, manager of Pilipino Oriental Grocery and Restaurant in West Dundee.

"We're celebrating, we're done with Lent and fasting. Whatever's put on the table, we'll eat," he said.

Popular dishes at this time of year include pancit, a stir-fried noodle and vegetable dish; adobo pork served with rice; lumpia, which is similar to a spring roll; and flan, a steamed custard dish, for dessert.

Dessert, such as Turkish delight, as well as Turkish coffee and tea are the main attractions at East Dundee-based online retailer Best Turkish Food, www.bestturkishfood.com, said president Levent Yagci.

"Ninety percent of our customers are Muslims, but we do have customers who celebrate Easter. Many of these are people who have been in Turkey and know our habits and our products," he said.

But as families grow and change, so do many traditions.

"We used to start out with breakfast in the morning, then a big meal around 2 p.m.," recalls Tony Santinello.

The big meal once included ham, turkey and Italian specialties such as calzone and homemade ravioli. For desserts there were biscotti, cannoli, and a pastry stuffed with ricotta, deep fried and rolled in brown sugar that Santinello calls "cappadusi."

Nearly all of the food was prepared by Santinello's mother. These days the turkey is gone, as is some of the pasta. Santinello's wife, Diane, and her mother, Irene, cook the ham and sides, which now include Polish sausage and sauerkraut.

But 95-year-old Vita still bakes the appetizers -- and of course, the traditional chicken bread.

"We don't want to overload her, but she still wants to do it all," said Tony.

For the Lawins, Easter this year means a trip downstate to visit daughter and son-in-law Tanya and Joe Calendo, and their two sons and baby boy.

"I'm not sure what we're having. It could even be Italian, because of Joe," Gerda Lawin said.