As Easter is only a few hours away, I’ve been looking forward to tomorrow’s meat dishes. Which, in turn,  reminded me of the best phrase I’ve ever read in a New York Times article:

…Easter in the Mediterranean is unimaginable without lamb at the center of the feast. Often spit-roasted or braised in a wood-fired oven, surrounded by many of those seasonal first fruits, lamb, in a sense, is what Easter is all about, the Agnus Dei, the lamb of God, the sacrificial offering of the first-born in the shepherd’s flock, a practice as old as the first shepherd, Abel, whose offering was more pleasing to the Lord than Cain’s tiresome vegetables.

From “On Easter, Symbolism And the Exuberance of Spring”

By Nancy Harmon Jenkins

Published: April 4, 2007