Easter in Sweden
A Swedish Easter is a decidedly yellow season. The yellow color has nothing to do with the liturgical colors for Easter, which are white, black and violet.

No, Easter’s yellow comes from the fact that many of the symbols for Easter seem to be yellow (as opposed to Christmas, for instance): the feathers, the daffodils and the chickens on the greeting cards. Each province or “landskap” in Sweden has its own traditions when it comes to what to eat for Easter, but most of the dishes include eggs, lamb or salmon.

According to an earlier survey by the Swedish free daily Metro, the most important ingredients on the Easter table are eggs (54%), herring (16%), salmon (7%), Janssons temptation (the creamy onion and potato casserole with spicy anchovies, 6%) and lamb (6%). The 2,000 tons of eggs (about 32 million eggs) and 1,500 tons of herring Swedes will consume over Easter may sound like a lot but the numbers fade when compared to candy consumption, which is 7,000 tons—or 3 pounds of candy per person. Easter is in Sweden a long holiday beginning on Maundy Thursday and stretching to the third day of Easter (Annandag Påsk in Swedish) on Monday, April 22 this year.

Here in the U.S. we celebrate Easter Day most of the time, and inspired by a recent visit to Scandinavian Butik we couldn’t resist including another recipe of Easter inspired sweets: Chocolate Easter Squares