Is it mustachian to only eat hot cross buns on Good Friday?

[deborah]

When I was a child, hot cross buns only appeared on Good Friday. Now they happen all the time, from Christmas onward. With the emphasis on delayed gratification and not having too much of a good thing, I would think that having hot cross buns only on Good Friday would be appropriate for mustachians.

SO and I decided many years ago that having hot cross buns only during Lent was an appropriate compromise, as we rarely are together on Good Friday. And at most every second day of Lent.

[MayDay]

Wow, I find this post totally confusing, and I was raised in a Christian religion. 

So.... What the heck are you talking about? 

[netskyblue]

Huh?  I had no idea they had anything to do with a particular day, I thought they were just a food.

[I'm a red panda]

I've never had a hot cross bun.

But when I was a kid, we didn't eat anything on Good Friday- just drank water.

Fasting saves you the cost of the days food. That's mustachian.

[deborah]

During the Easter period (at least in my childhood) there were five traditions - giving up something for Lent (traditionally that meant not eating things like eggs, meat...), Pancake Tuesday (the day before Lent started, when you made pancakes with the eggs you were giving up for lent - also known as Mardi Gras), Hot Cross Buns (eaten on Good Friday - bread buns with spice and mixed fruit in them and a cross piped in flour on top), eating fish on Good Friday, and Easter Eggs on Easter Sunday.

See http://www.foodtimeline.org/easter.html

We looked forward to Hot Cross Buns all year! But now they are in the shops from Christmas onward.

[dsmexpat]

Hashtag just British things?

I was very happy when I became an adult and responsible for my own shopping and I found out I could buy hot cross buns from Christmas all the way to Easter. Then I found that some stores just keep selling them all year and I was even happier. Slice them, toast them, butter them, life is good. Then I went to the US and couldn't have them anymore.

[netskyblue]

Hmm I just googled it.  I guess what I've always called hot cross buns are not what the rest of the world seems to think they are.  I've never heard of what real hot cross buns are. 

I've always heard "hot cross buns" in reference to dinner rolls with an "x" snipped in the top.  Just a plain yeast roll.

I guess real hot cross buns are a sweet roll with currants or raisins forming a cross on the top.

[swick]

Hashtag just British things?

I was very happy when I became an adult and responsible for my own shopping and I found out I could buy hot cross buns from Christmas all the way to Easter. Then I found that some stores just keep selling them all year and I was even happier. Slice them, toast them, butter them, life is good. Then I went to the US and couldn't have them anymore.

British and Canadian :) If they are something you love (as our family does) the real mustachian thing to do is to just bake your own - bonus you control the ingredients.

[nereo]

I've always heard "hot cross buns" in reference to dinner rolls with an "x" snipped in the top.  Just a plain yeast roll.

I guess real hot cross buns are a sweet roll with currants or raisins forming a cross on the top.

Wow - I didn't really know what Deborah was talking about either, and I grew up in a family that went to church every sunday.  I, too, thought hot cross buns were just those dinner rolls with an 'x' in them.  Now I'm going to have to make my own to see what the Big D is about them.

Also: I love the idea of "pancake tuesday".  I want every tuesday now to be Pancake Tuesday.... that might not be what Deborah had in mind though.

[deborah]

The cross represents Jesus dieing on the cross, which is why they are eaten on Good Friday. I didn't realise the US didn't have this tradition. Here they are EVERYWHERE - every baker and all the supermarkets have them (some from Christmas onward, but everyone has them from the beginning of lent).

[lise]

Deborah - you are making me homesick!  (New Zealander living in the US).

[I'm a red panda]

Isn't the X in a hot cross bun actually a t?

I remember there being a nursery rhyme about rolling them and marking them with a T.

[deborah]

No, it is a plus sign - see http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/7695/hot+cross+buns for a picture and a recipe

[netskyblue]

Isn't the X in a hot cross bun actually a t?

I remember there being a nursery rhyme about rolling them and marking them with a T.

That's Pattycakes (or Pat-a-cake).  Hot cross buns have a different rhyme.

[nereo]

Isn't the X in a hot cross bun actually a t?

I remember there being a nursery rhyme about rolling them and marking them with a T.

That's Pattycakes (or Pat-a-cake).  Hot cross buns have a different rhyme.

Ok, so.... what the heck are pattycakes?  I mean, I know the nursery rhyme, but are they a "thing" too in Australia/UK?

[shelivesthedream]

Isn't the X in a hot cross bun actually a t?

I remember there being a nursery rhyme about rolling them and marking them with a T.

It's marked with B, for Baby. And that is a completely different thing!

[sheepstache]

Yes, I think this is mustachian! The self-control and delayed gratification are great exercises and will make those hot cross buns all the sweeter.

I try to do this stuff sometimes and my friends think I'm nuts.

[Noodle]

I grew up eating hot cross buns in New England (U.S.) and have seen them in grocery stores in the US, especially in areas with big Catholic populations (I think that is regional, though, when I was young my mom made them at home). Hot cross buns are sweeter than dinner rolls and have spices in them, and often dried fruit (although not when I make them). The cross can be cut in the top or iced on. Go figure, I did not realize Americans would find them so unusual.

Now what I miss is fastnacht, or Fat Tuesday jelly doughnuts. On sale everywhere in the old German areas of Pennsylvania. You can buy them at the grocery store, but the best ones come from the churches where the ladies' groups make them as a fundraiser.

[Eric]

Are they healthy?  They don't sound healthy.  And going a whole day of only eating hot cross buns sounds rough.  Maybe throw in some vegetables.  Make your body happy.

[HappierAtHome]

I'm with you, Deborah. It really annoys me to see Christmas stuff in the shops from about August onwards, too.

For full credit you need to make your own hot cross buns. The heart foundation website has a recipe that's turned out well for me in previous years.

[deborah]

Are they healthy?  They don't sound healthy.  And going a whole day of only eating hot cross buns sounds rough.  Maybe throw in some vegetables.  Make your body happy.

Hah hah! Do you only eat Christmas Cake all day Christmas day? Or Easter Eggs all day Easter Sunday? Hot Cross Buns in our family are eaten at breakfast time on Good Friday.

[teen persuasion]

I grew up eating hot cross buns in New England (U.S.) and have seen them in grocery stores in the US, especially in areas with big Catholic populations (I think that is regional, though, when I was young my mom made them at home). Hot cross buns are sweeter than dinner rolls and have spices in them, and often dried fruit (although not when I make them). The cross can be cut in the top or iced on. Go figure, I did not realize Americans would find them so unusual.

Now what I miss is fastnacht, or Fat Tuesday jelly doughnuts. On sale everywhere in the old German areas of Pennsylvania. You can buy them at the grocery store, but the best ones come from the churches where the ladies' groups make them as a fundraiser.

Those are very popular in WNY, too.  There are a lot of ethnic food (and non-food) traditions around Easter: fastnachts (also called paczkis here), butter lambs, Dyngus day pussywillows and squirtguns.

[happy]

I find hot cross buns to be quite addictive, (similar to raisin toast). So I definitely limit them, and having to resist for so long with them now in the shops for months  used to be difficult. Our prizewinning Vietnamese baker makes them ( yummo), but since they were popular he makes them all year round now!  Going gluten free solved my problem, until this year. Coles has been selling GF hot cross buns. I did succumb to a couple of packets, but then figured out they were $1 each, which put a stop to that. A real mustachian, of course would have figured they were $1 each before they scoffed a couple of packs…....

So if you can just eat them for good Friday breakfast, go for it.

[choppingwood]

Good thing I saw this thread. Our cafeteria at work gave out free hot cross buns and Easter eggs the food services staff had coloured themselves this morning. I declined a hot cross bun, but put one of the eggs in my purse. (It is a very pretty deep pink.) Never took it out until now. It could have been a really ugly situation by the time I remembered later in the month.

[deborah]

Well, I made my own HCBs today! And they were successful - even though I didn't have any of the usual fruit, so used an interesting variety of dried fruits that happened to be in the pantry - don't know why I ever bought dried apples and dried gogi berries!

[JLR]

Here in our part of Australia, I've seen hot cross buns for sale since January. I resisted buying any until this week. Thought we would eat them today, but we didn't. Had bacon and eggs instead...sorry Catholics!

4/5 of us were baptised Catholic, but we don't go to church and don't follow any of the traditions. For me, hot cross buns are special because you only have them at Easter. If I started buying them in January they would lose that.

I loved the Malteaster bunnies that I first found last year. Was looking forward to seeing them again this Easter, but then they released a Christmas version. Being able to get them for so much of the year took the shine off them.

[MsRichLife]

I love Hot Cross Buns. I couldn't wait until Easter rolled around so I could enjoy this tasty treat. The three Easters I spent in the US were just awful for lack of Hot Cross Buns. Now they are in the stores for months and I swear I've put on 5kg! Wah!

[deborah]

I am glad I wrote this post - even if it was just to find out that in the US many of them really miss out on some of the good things in life!

[MandalayVA]

I grew up Catholic in New Jersey and occasionally we'd have hot cross buns on Good Friday.  I remember really not liking them that much; to me the taste was similar to commercial fruitcake, which I loathe. 

Since we're on the subject of Good Friday, I remember the first one after I'd moved to Kentucky because I'd gone to my manager at work earlier in the week and said something like "yay, three-day weekend!"  She looked at me like I'd grown an extra head and said "what do you mean?"  I said "Good Friday's coming up."  This woman was a heavy-duty evangelical Christian.  She didn't know what Good Friday was.  In New Jersey pretty much every job I had shut down on Good Friday, but in the south it's just Friday.

[Noodle]

We were talking about that at work the other day...my present employer, for reasons no one understands but we all enjoy, closes on Good Friday...but we are very unusual in the city. We have to remember to tell new hires that we are closed...we have had more than one incident of people showing up for work and finding the office shut because it's so odd. But when I lived in PA, many more people had the day off and the schools scheduled Spring Break to fall on Holy Week.

[Purple Economist]

During the Easter period (at least in my childhood) there were five traditions - giving up something for Lent (traditionally that meant not eating things like eggs, meat...), Pancake Tuesday (the day before Lent started, when you made pancakes with the eggs you were giving up for lent - also known as Mardi Gras), Hot Cross Buns (eaten on Good Friday - bread buns with spice and mixed fruit in them and a cross piped in flour on top), eating fish on Good Friday, and Easter Eggs on Easter Sunday.

See http://www.foodtimeline.org/easter.html

We looked forward to Hot Cross Buns all year! But now they are in the shops from Christmas onward.

In the US, Pancake Tuesday is called Shrove Tuesday.  At our church, the youth put on a pancake dinner on Shrove Tuesday.

[MandalayVA]

[quote author=Purple Economist link=topic=34734.msg614104#msg614104
In the US, Pancake Tuesday is called Shrove Tuesday.  At our church, the youth put on a pancake dinner on Shrove Tuesday.
[/quote]

Actually Shrove Tuesday is the true name, seeing that the day preceded pancakes by hundreds of years.  :D  Even though I'm non-religious the local Episcopal church also does a pancake supper for Shrove Tuesday and it's GOOD.

[RetiredAt63]

I grew up with Hot Cross Buns (sweet rolls with candied fruit and the cross either cut in or added in icing) in Quebec, and also with Shrove Tuesday.  I think it became pancake Tuesday because all the goodies, including leavened bread, were eaten up then (same as Mardi Gras, which is Fat Tuesday en français).

In Quebec the big closing day is Easter Monday, here in Ontario it is today - no grocery stores are open, no mail delivery, no banks, etc.  All along the Quebec/Ontario border there will be cross-border shopping today and Monday ;-)

[KCM5]

Two things about hot cross buns where I'm from (Iowa):

1. They're generally only available on Good Friday.
2. They have crosses made of icing rather than the hard white ones made of some sort of dough.

In general I think only eating them on Good Friday may or may not be mustachian. You do it because its tradition and don't question it: non-mustachian. You do it because you enjoy the tradition and value it: mustachian.

Also, I just ate one and it was delicious!

[nereo]

so - I just checked three different bakeries (boulangeries) and two grocery stores near us (Quebec) and I could not find a single Hot Cross Bun for sale.
This, in an area that was once dominated by the french-catholic church to an astounding degree (but is no longer after the 'quiet revolution' in the 1960s &70s)

Well, I'm going to make them this weekend.  I found one recipe by jamie Oliver - anyone their own 'must-try' recipe? I'm only going to make one kind, so send me the best (even if it's not even remotely good for you) :-)

[marty998]

Uh, the Anglican Primate* in Melbourne has come out ranting about hot cross buns being an offensive commercialisation of Easter.

I ate my first hot cross bun this year on 2 January. Woolies had them on sale 1/2 price! Fully expect them to have Christmas decorations out for sale on Tuesday.

*Why the word "Primate" is used to denote the head of the Anglican Church in Australia is beyond me.

[RetiredAt63]

Going OT here, isn't language fun?  Primate comes from prime, or first - so a Primate is first in something.  So Primate in this sense makes perfect sense.  Just like the Prime Minister is the first or most important minister in the government.

Primate as referring to us shows our historical bias, we are primates, dogs are carnivores, rats are rodents (Primata, Carnivora, Rodentia) - of course we are the most important group, even though numerically we are a small group, because our group contains US!!!!!.

*Why the word "Primate" is used to denote the head of the Anglican Church in Australia is beyond me.

[teen persuasion]

I grew up with Hot Cross Buns (sweet rolls with candied fruit and the cross either cut in or added in icing) in Quebec, and also with Shrove Tuesday.  I think it became pancake Tuesday because all the goodies, including leavened bread, were eaten up then (same as Mardi Gras, which is Fat Tuesday en français).

In Quebec the big closing day is Easter Monday, here in Ontario it is today - no grocery stores are open, no mail delivery, no banks, etc.  All along the Quebec/Ontario border there will be cross-border shopping today and Monday ;-)

Dyngus Day!

[deborah]

In the US, Pancake Tuesday is called Shrove Tuesday.  At our church, the youth put on a pancake dinner on Shrove Tuesday.

Actually Shrove Tuesday is the true name, seeing that the day preceded pancakes by hundreds of years.  :D  Even though I'm non-religious the local Episcopal church also does a pancake supper for Shrove Tuesday and it's GOOD.

I was so flummoxed that people in the US don't have Hot Cross Buns, that I thought calling it Shrove Tuesday would really stretch people!

In Australia both Good Friday and Easter Monday are public holidays, and a lot of shops are closed all weekend. I think Hot Cross Buns might be an English tradition so an Anglican (Episcopal) tradition rather than a Catholic one.

[goatmom]

Well, I grew up eating Hot Cross Buns on Good Friday here in New York.  I remember them also being available when I lived in D.C. at the bakeries on Good Friday.  Our family tended to live in Catholic bubbles/ghettos.  DH from out West had never heard of them. 

[nereo]

After failing to find them in the bakeries and stores near me, I made my own Hot Cross Buns off an internet recipe.  The verdict - quite tasty!  I may have to make this an annual tradition.  A bit more dense than an Italian Panatone - tomorrow I'm going to split the remaining ones length-wise and turn them into french toast for Sunday breakfast (along with the eggs).

[DesireeD]

      I had never had a hot cross bun before reading this posting yesterday. Ya all made them sound so great, so I found some in a bakery on my way home from work. Wow! They were awesome! I ate 4 for dinner last night, and 4 for breakfast this morning. I feel sick but would do it again.
     Next year I will try to make my own.

[kpd905]

I only knew of Hot Cross Buns as an easy song to play on the recorder.

[scrubbyfish]

dammit! I forgot to get my kid one yesterday. I'd meant to.

I read the thread title the same way Eric did: that you wanted to eat nothing BUT hot cross buns on Good Friday. ha!

this thread gives me that feeling i had as a kid of being "special" by being all attuned to fat tuesday, hot cross buns, etc. however, i've been intrigued this week to realize i have no idea when lent ends. i've been doing some lent stuff since ash wednesday, and this past week realized i don't remember if lent ends at good friday or easter sunday. (or holy saturday or maundy thursday, or...) lucky for me, i'm not religious so it doesn't really bear anyway :)

[deborah]

Palm Sunday

[scrubbyfish]

Palm Sunday

what?? really?!?!!? that's so funny!! the one day i didn't mention/guess?

especially funny to me as monday to wednesday i was so freakin' hungry i ate wild amounts of food. i couldn't understand it, and assumed it was something to do with my long and tiring trip back all sunday. i was a bit worried i would still be hungry for my week's two fasting days. and here it was all over, my hunger safely and conveniently kicked in the day after the fasting period ended. oh!

[kathrynd]

Answer to question....probably.

In Australia, we bought a package. I was thinking the cross was a little skimpy on the icing  (I'm Canadian)..and then found out it wasn't even icing..white dough...yuck!!

So I refuse to buy them here anymore.

Not that it really mattered, because
One thing that Australia cannot do, is make a good frosting.

When in Canada, we only bought at Easter time, because that was the only time they were available.
Same as egg nog...it was a treat, only if you didn't get it all the time.

[agent_clone]

      I had never had a hot cross bun before reading this posting yesterday. Ya all made them sound so great, so I found some in a bakery on my way home from work. Wow! They were awesome! I ate 4 for dinner last night, and 4 for breakfast this morning. I feel sick but would do it again.
     Next year I will try to make my own.

I call Hot Cross Buns a breakfast and lunch food. i.e. when you have them, you can have them for both Breakfast and Lunch. Interestingly I haven't had any this year...

[deborah]

In Australia they sometimes have icing on them, but "proper" hot cross buns have dough - they are heated in the oven - after all they are HOT cross buns.

As hot cross buns, Easter eggs and all the other Easter fare of various countries are all made of things you can't eat during Lent, it has to finish before Easter (and of course, the last supper is celebrated on Maundy Thursday, so Lent must finish before that). However, some people say Maundy Thursday (evidently this is the liturgical end of lent), and some say Easter Saturday (so how do we eat HXB)! I'm sure I saw Palm Sunday somewhere as being the end of lent. So all I can say is that Google is confusing on this! Sorry to lead you up the garden path SF!

[scrubbyfish]

Sorry to lead you up the garden path SF!

No worries!

I knew for sure it was over by Easter morning because that's when we -as kids- started with the sugar again, but beyond that I had no recall...and I'd forgotten about hot cross buns, sadly for me this year! And I fasted again Thursday and Friday, so I'm safe any which way ;)