Greek Easter Eggs - kokkina Pasxalina avga, Kόκκινα αυγά

Greeks mainly color eggs red (scarlet) to signify the blood of Christ. We use hard-boiled eggs painted red on Holy Thursday (I got a head start) which are baked into Tsourekia and distributed on Easter Sunday. 


We play a game where you and a friend each pick an egg to play with. The first player says "Xristos Anesti!" (Christ is Risen!) and the second player responds with "Alithos Anesti!" (Truelly He is Risen!) and then we smash our eggs together hoping to crack our opponents egg and that ours remains in tact. The player with the uncracked egg wins & their egg is considered lucky. 


Great fun except I remember as a kid my mom would put a limit on how many eggs we could play with because she had to eat them or make them into egg salad and who wants to eat egg salad when there is ROAST LAMB!


Anyway, in Christianity, the egg is a symbol of Resurrection, representing the emergence of Christ from His tomb to everlasting life. Which is also represented by the cracking sound when you smash eggs. 


So now that I have happily finished my first ever Red Greek Eggs with authentic Greek dye from Greece (seriously the package was in Greek & it took me forever to figure out what the heck it said since most of the words were bigger than my usual daily Greek vocabulary). But I am super happy with the way they look. Deep red, shiny, and now they are baked into tsourekia.


Next year I will try coloring eggs naturally with onion skins. Kalo Pascha everyone!

My Easter goodies, all wrapped up & ready to go :)