WHEN `HOLY WEEK’ COMES LONG

I’m amazed by the history of hot cross buns…

FOR Christian Goa it is Holy Week from April 2 to 5 beginning with Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Virgil and Easter Sunday with the story of a risen Christ. You cannot live in Goa for any length of time without being clued up about how Christianity is so attractive and my hubby, although he is a shudh Tambrahm Tamilian Iyer, knows a lot more about the inside out of Christianity and Christian politicians in Goa…however, the self-confessed atheist has a soft corner for the story of the life and times of Jesus Christ and all the values he stood for then 2,000 years ago and to this day…funny or not funny from Wednesday itself he asked me to go and get a hot cross bun for him to eat.
I know enough now to know that the hot cross buns of Christianity are available at the Goan Christian bakeries (of which Goa has in plenty) only on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday…and over the years I’ve seen how the price of hot cross buns have moved from Rs5 to today’s minimum Rs15 and of course more exotic hot cross buns at Rs60 at the fancier patisserie café outlets like Padaria Prazeres; my all-time favorite for Goan sweet something goodies however remains Confeiteria 31 de Janeiro located down a lane where Latin heritage quarters Fontainhas begin. For old times’ sake I also drop in at Mr Baker’s…and a few more places.
I have got into the habit of picking up half-a-dozen hot cross buns from everywhere which I distribute of course to friends and whoever is around me during the week – the hubby usually keys me up by saying things like, “Today’s is Maundy Thursday, if you go to church you may get your feet washed…” or “If you go for mass you may get a free hot cross bun…” Everyone gets a free hot cross and it makes me think why is it that when I go to a temple for some auspicious day I don’t get a puran poli by way of a takeover gift!
Sigh. Don’t laugh. Just idle talk this, of course I know church and temple represent different religions and ways of pious devotion. Even in the old days when I was living in Penang in Malaysia in the 50’s and 60s I remember it was standard practice to receive a “prasad” of fresh coconut pieces with nugget jaggery and roasted gram. In gurudwara of course one gets the most divine hot “kada prasad halva” of rich wheat flour cooked in gud-sweetened water, with or without ghee but utterly delicious. The halva would be ladled hot on the palm of one’s hand and after eating it immediately one just wiped one’s hands on one’s face or hair if there was any trace of ghee left!
But I don’t want to wax lyrical about prasadam offered at various temples around India and especially down south India, not to mention all the meals served, free, one can never go hungry in a temple town or for that matter even where there’s a Sai Baba centre…India is truly a blessed country if I may say so and I will never want to be anything but secular in the true spirit of welcoming all religious ways of living.
TO stay with hot cross buns I notice that some of the Goan bakeries doing hot cross buns do invest in using some ratio of whole wheat flour to bind the dough for baking the buns. Eating hot cross buns during Holy Week is symbolic and a solemn observation to remind how life was a rose garden for the many in the old Roman times…the Roman Pontious Pilate had ordered Jesus to be crucified (on complaints of the Jews merchants who hated Jesus and his miraculous ways of guiding his people who loved him with devotion)….
In short the story of hot cross buns is good Samaritans baked them and distributing them for the people to eat in troubled times. Those times of early Christian history the community were troubled over the matter of their Master being dragged in chains to Golgotha hill where the crucifixion was to take place along with other criminals (hardened criminals). Read up your Christianity, okay.

Strictly speaking a hot cross bun is a spiced bun with raisins in it and comes marked with a cross on top. It’s traditionally eaten on Good Friday in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada, India, Pakistan, Malta, the United States and the Commonwealth Caribbean. In some countries the buns are available all year round as in the UK. According to Wikipedia the bun marks the end of the season of Lent and the cross on it represents the crucifixion of Jesus, the spices within signify the spices used when his body was embalmed after it was brought down from the cross.

Over the years the distribution and sale of hot cross buns became a tradition in memory of one who showed the way to live a respectable, honorable, merciful, charitable life. Most hot cross buns I’ve come across have golden raisins or black currents in them and cinnamon made them more fragrant and delicious to eat — making them truly food for life or so to speak! Very different from eating the array of Goan local breads distributed by the regular poder’s boys doing their bicycle rounds in Goa early morning and late evenings…Goans are so in love with their array of local bakery breads introduced during Portuguese times. It’s like Goans can’t live without their most wholesome poie or crusty undo or butterfly styled katrepav or soft, softest pau called “ladi pau” (served with butter loaded pau-bhaji most everywhere), there’re a few more. Only, they’re not made of 100% whole wheat flour anymore and hence quite possibly all the eating of refined white breads does contribute towards making Goa a No1 state for diabetes, insulin resistance, etcetera.
The Holy Week hot cross buns are usually sweetened affairs and I’m sure some of the bakers do a ratio of atta or whole wheat flour addition, plus the buns may be aromatic with cinnamon and of course the raisins/currents/occasional nut – this is to say this Good Friday my breakfast was of hot cross bun and mango miskut and some more with butter lashed atop…dip dip style, that dipping the bun into my hot, hot ginger-flavored tea and relishing the melting of flavors. I eat like this only once in a way for old times sake, okay, and Holy Week I have a soft corner for hot cross buns for all kinds of insane reasons right or wrong. A leftover hot cross bun is also good with soup. A bit of spicy tart marries well with a modestly sweetish wholesome hot-cross bun. The cross motif on each bun can be very tough and chewy and I remove it, but sometimes the cross is just ingrained on the bun so one may tuck in right away — fresh and warm if you’ve got your hot cross buns sometime pre-lunch hours.
Those which I got from Confeitaria 31 De Janeiro were certainly warm and still steamy, it’s the one place one may buy only one hot cross bun if one so wishes! Elsewhere there is this unspoken insistence that you buy the two or three or four hot cross buns in their plastic wraps…so one may end up with more than one, it’s like the more the merrier.
I do get carried away by the idea of a hot cross bun to eat on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday in memory of an iconic man whom so many still swear by today or so to speak. He was such an exemplary man to remember life’s evergreen values for the larger good of humanity. Well, think about all this and I must confess I did go back to Padaria Prazeres so nearby for me in Caranzalem to buy two more of their hot cross buns…they also had dark chocolate coated hot cross buns but pricy of course, I think there were few takers for these.
My New Zealand sister tells me she bought apple and cinnamon hot cross buns from her local supermarket and they were very good. Hot cross buns come in many combos now maybe even in the Christian countries and certainly we have come a long, long way from the life and times of Jesus Christ, or have we?