In Catalunya, a part of the religious traditions that we have during Easter, there is also a big food tradition where godmothers and godfathers take part with their godchildren. Probably, due to this sweet tradition, Easter is one of my favourite celebrations. In the next lines you are going to know a little bit more about what we eat, when and why.

So let’s start! Tortell de Rams is the typical cake for Palm Sunday, the week before Easter, and godparents give it to their godchildren after the celebratory service in the church.

In Catalunya, “tortells” are a very common dessert. A tortell is a sweet coca, a bread-like cake, which is usually ring-shaped and is the typical food of many Catalan festivals. For example, the Tortell de Reis and the Tortell de Sant Antoni are basically the same but with small variations.

The Tortell de Rams, like those in the other festivals, may be stuffed and decorated with various ingredients, although the most typical version is filled with marzipan and decorated with candied fruit.

For a long time, until well into the 20th century, it was traditional for the cake makers and also householders, to make tortells with hard-boiled eggs on the top, which godparents gave to their godchildren on the Sunday of Pasqua Florida (the Feast of Flowers), or the day after.

Nowadays, Easter includes a culinary treat eagerly awaited by the little ones: the mona. After centuries of evolution, the mona de Pasqua is a sweet, normally made of chocolate, that comes in various forms, often related to the annual trends for children. It seems that the word mona could be derived from the Arabic word munah, which means gift.

According to tradition, the cake had to have the same number of eggs as the age of the child to which it was given, until they had their first communion. Over time, the eggs became chocolate, and today the mona has become a chocolate figure of any manner of shape or colour: we can find everything from traditional eggs to cartoon characters, animals, and football players. But one thing that many have in common are the coloured goose feathers and little yellow chicks made of felt.