savor — guide to food & dining on the azalea coast
tsoureki
The Greek culture
takes its Easter bread
seriously, but with a
bit of fun, too. The
matriarchs of Greek
families spend their days leading up
to Easter preparing the traditional
tsoureki bread, braided loaves
adorned with dyed eggs. The bread
is eaten after the Easter meal.
The eggs for the tsoureki are typi-cally
dyed red to signify the passion
of Christ, explains Elizabeth Petrolias,
the yiayia (Greek for grandmother) of
WBM intern Alex Constantinou.
“I’ve been making bread since I
was a bride,” she says.
Making tsoureki is not an easy
task.
“It takes a lot of physical work. It’s
an all day job — I like two risings in
my bread, plus the dying of the eggs
takes time,” Petrolias says.
It is usually baked mid-week before Easter Sunday. The shapes
of the bread vary, but usually involve some form of braiding, with
eggs nestled into the crevices.
“I would make a big wreath. I would braid and twist it into a
round wreath. I could use up to a half a dozen eggs in one loaf.
I would also put egg wash on top, which makes the bread shine.
Some people put sesame seeds on top as well,” says Petrolias. “It
makes a beautiful show.”
The eggs are traditionally red, but Petrolias says she has tried
pastel colors over the years.
“A lady in my church once used Rit clothing dye, which was
gorgeous! But, of course, you couldn’t eat it,” she laughs.
The finished product is an impressive display, and after holiday
fasting, it is pleasing to the pallet.
“It’s a sweet, sweet dough. Everybody told me my bread tasted
like cake, and that always made me happy,” Petrolias says.
Des Saffo, mother of Wilmington Mayor Bill Saffo, also has a
long history of baking.
“I do it by tradition because my mother made the bread; my
mother-in-law made the bread. ... I love the smell of it while I’m
making it; I just love the tradition,” Saffo says.
Saffo began baking after she married in her early 20s.
“I saw my mother-in-law baking and I said, ‘I’ve got to learn to
do this because I love cooking. I love baking Greek pastries.’”
Her recipe makes five loaves and she gives one to each of her five
children. (See Recipe p. 71)
Many a Greek Easter celebration is not complete unless it’s capped off with a loaf of tsoureki and
a raucous game of egg-cracking.
“The week I begin baking, my whole house smells good and I
can tell Easter is coming,” Saffo says.
The fun comes after the meal is finished when the egg game,
tsougrisma, begins. Each person holds an egg. Taking turns with a
partner, one will hit the opponent’s egg with his or her own egg.
The person whose egg cracks first is the loser. The winner goes on
to the next opponent.
“I have a basket of eggs, and we all try to see whose egg is going
to be the toughest, the strongest,” says Saffo.
Whoever has the last whole egg is the winner.
“We have a big time!” she laughs.
Petrolias says her father always had a trick up his sleeve.
“My father had a wooden egg that he used to pull out. He
tricked us kids when we were little and then the grandkids. He
pulled it out every year,” she laughs, recalling the memory. “I don’t
know where he used to hide it, but it was probably in the liquor
cabinet. Nobody was allowed in there but him.”
In her family, she says, “Everyone arms themselves with the
eggs and takes a turn trying to break the other person’s egg, first
point to point, and we would then turn the egg around and do
the round end.” They would go around the table, and at the end,
“nobody’s ever left with a whole egg. There’s lots of laughing, and
then we would eat the eggs. That’s the last course of the meal, but
it’s usually a mess because everybody’s hands ended up red.”
Petrolias says, “It’s a wonderful tradition. Easter is such a
glorious holiday.”
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WBM march 2013