Red-Dyed Eggs
Easter is the most important feast day in the Orthodox liturgical calendar. Good Friday is a fast day, when only olives, vegetables and bread are eaten. On Saturday the whole family lends a hand at preparing the hardboiled eggs that will be dyed red. Traditional tsoureki bread is braided, it too to be adorned with red eggs. When the bells ring out Christ's resurrection at midnight, a tripe soup called mayeritsa is brought to the table in which have been cooked the heart and lungs of the paschal lamb, and the Easter bread is broken. Everyone chooses a red egg from the basket; it has to be held with three fingers as each person tries to break his neighbour's egg.

On Easter Sunday, everyone gets up early because it takes a good five hours to roast the lamb on the spit, accompanied by rice, salad and special meatballs made with liver, onions and finely-chopped vegetables, held together by a strip of intestine. Even while waiting for the lamb, the celebrations, eating and drinking have already begun.