Headlines
Guylian's Giant Easter Egg
Eggtastic Times!
7th April 2009
It may well be a time to gorge yourself on a many wonderful selection of chocolate Easter eggs and other confectionary, but few young people today know what Easter really is about, writes Shae Courtney. Easter, in the Christian calendar, is the most important feast of the liturgical year. Christians believe that it was at this time of year that Jesus was resurrected from the dead three days after his crucifixion.
Enough of the Christian mantra, for one moment however. The very fact that few people know the traditions of Easter is sad enough, but quite what the festivities have been reduced to is not only sad, but a taint upon our society. The origins of the Easter egg came not from the Cadbury factory in Bournville, Birmingham, as many would have us believe. The origins of the egg hark back to Pagan times when a painted egg was seen as a symbol of the rebirth of Earth.
For many, especially children, Easter has become an excuse to feast on the delights of an egg-shaped chocolate. Supermarket giants, including Tesco and J Sainsbury, have snapped up surplus egg stock that was bound for the shelves of the now defunct Woolworths chain. Thrifty consumers can be sure to bag themselves a bargain in the coming days with a price war that has broken out between the two retailers.
In an effort to end on a lighter note, Guylian, the Belgian chocolatier, created the World’s largest edible Easter egg in 2005 which weighed 1200 Kg and stood over eight metres high. The first ever chocolate Easter egg was produced by Fry’s of Great Britain in 1873 and the industry, now worth over £300m per annum, sells some 80 million chocolate eggs each year. Bon appétit!