Tevye was right. It's about TRADITION!

Easter time. For those Boomers among us who observe this holiday, traditions at this time of year seem to be getting more and more treasured.

Greeks have more traditions at this time of year than any other ethnic group I know, since this is the biggest religious holiday of the year for Orthodox Christians, many of whom are of Greek descent, like myself.  The church pomp and circumstance is beautifully breathtaking in its depiction of the crucified and resurrected Christ, with flower-and-candle-embellished traditions that date back thousands of years.

So, too, does the baking and cooking -- accomplished beginning weeks in advance to herald the approach of the very first minute of Easter Sunday -- become so very important, when all fasting, repetitive praying and liturgical singing comes to a jubilant climax. 

As the years pass and succeeding generations intermarry within the great melting pot we call America, many of these traditions can get lost in the shuffle. Perhaps that is why it is so important to me to keep it alive by the baking and cooking I am just NOW learning to perfect.

Greek main dishes are replete with spices, herbs, and garlic while desserts brim over with sugar, eggs, phyllo dough, cinnamon, and butter, butter, and more butter.  Cholesterol be damned, this is the one day of the year we take a break from any healthy eating habits, diabetics shoot up extra insulin (or whatever they have to compensate for in order to feast) as we ingest roasted, garlic-infused lamb, pastitsio (a kind of Greek lasagna), roasted potato wedges with lemon drizzled over their browned edges, village salad with feta and Kalamata olives tossed within and finish off with the many pastries that have become so popular at our yearly food festivals -- powdered sugar butter cookies, shortbread cookies shaped like tiny loaves of bread, and custard pie covered with thin pastry drizzled with a honey mixture.  I have left out dozens of other dishes, but this gives you an idea of what we look forward to each and every year.

For many of us, these culinary traditions were brought here by our Yiayias and Popous (grandparents), the secrets of which were passed down to us.  I remember thinking in my 20s and 30s that it was just NO BIG DEAL that I hadn't learned to bake or cook any of this.  My mom and my relatives provided the aromas, the delights and the spirit of the Easter holiday. But as generations pass and adult children have given birth to what are now more adult children, I begin to savor it more than ever. I can only hope that someday my daughter will embrace the uniqueness of these customs, just as I am sure my mother wished for me.

Whatever treasured traditions your family has tried to pass on, I hope you deem them important enough to try to replicate some of them. Why?  Because it is in our diversity that we, as Americans are strongest.  The vitriol with which politics sometimes divides us can be stripped away with some simple acts of participation and inclusion -- the serving of a Seder dinner to a non-Jew, the attendance at a Greek festival by an Irish American, the parading down Bourbon Street at Mardi Gras time with African Americans playing the music that made us great, or the wearin' 'o the green on St. Patty's Day. 

We are all one, yet we are all different, sharing the richness of heritage handed to us by preceding generations.  The scene in the movie 'Fiddler on the Roof" where the main character, Tevye, reluctantly but then jubilantly celebrates the impending marriage of his daughter along with the local Russians at the village pub is a classic depiction of how we can shed our prejudices and even if just for a moment -- revel in one another's traditions.