On Easter Sunday morning, Oksana Boyko, a server at Ukrainian Village (815 Denman Street), will celebrate with friends, proudly continuing the Ukrainian Easter traditions she used to share with her family in Kiev. Her favourite aspect is the brightly coloured hard-boiled eggs, which have intricate designs painted on their shells. She looks forward to sitting around a table and playing a game that involves knocking the eggs against each other until the last person with an uncracked egg is declared the winner. This ritual is one of many diverse food traditions that will be observed in Vancouver on Easter Sunday—March 31 this year—many of which can also be sampled in restaurants across the city.

Along with the eggs, Boyko enjoys eating thick slices of paska, a round, sweet egg bread. “It’s really tasty. I always want a piece of paska so badly,” she says, interviewed at the restaurant. The rest of the day is spent enjoying other foods containing dairy, eggs, and meat, which people refrain from eating during Lent.

And what a feast! Boyko describes platefuls of savoury pierogies filled with cottage cheese or cabbage and sweet ones with strawberries or blueberries—all eaten with sour cream. There are also cabbage rolls stuffed with ground beef and pork, blini (pancakes) served with honey and jam, draniki (potato pancakes), and simmered ground beef or pork meatballs. Those not blessed with a Ukrainian relative or friend can enjoy cabbage rolls and savoury pierogies at the restaurant.

When Juan Carlos Contreras has special meals with family in Vancouver on both the Thursday before Good Friday and Good Friday itself (March 29 this year), he thinks of his mom in Guanajuato, Mexico, and the big gathering she hosts there. “The two big days are Thursday and Friday in Mexico, not Easter Sunday. We always have to eat things that don’t contain any meat,” Contreras, a co-owner of Salsa and Agave Mexican Grill (1223 Pacific Boulevard), explains at the restaurant.

Contreras says that on those days, the family cooks chiles rellenos: grilled poblano peppers stuffed with a soft white cheese called queso fresco that are pan-fried and covered with a tomato cream sauce. Other traditional dishes are sopa de lentejas—lentil soup seasoned with onion, tomato, and chipotle peppers—and papas horneadas, a baked dish consisting of layers of sliced potatoes, tomato sauce, and sour cream, all topped with grated mozzarella cheese. Instead of alcohol, they drink hibiscus agua fresca—chilled hibiscus-infused water. All of these items will be on offer at the restaurant on March 28 and 29.

During Lent (the 40-day period leading up to Easter), Fe Flores, co-owner of Casa Pinoy (101–11911 Bridgeport Road, Richmond), follows Catholic tradition and gives up meat, instead subsisting on steamed eggplant or okra with chopped tomatoes, onion, and fish sauce. Also permitted are fried milkfish (bangus), as well as sinigang na bangus (milkfish soup).

On Easter Sunday, though, “we eat the whole day,” she says, laughing during a phone interview. The table is loaded with lechon manok (whole roast chicken) and lechon baboy, a whole roast pig with crispy skin. She adds that there is plenty of plain white rice and simple salad to balance the rich meat.

Then it’s dessert time, with traditional Filipino sweets like leche flan, a caramel egg custard, as well as maja blanca (coconut pudding), cassava cakes, and halo halo, a dessert of shaved ice, evaporated milk, sweet beans, and fresh fruit. For your own Filipino Easter celebration, visit Casa Pinoy for these sweets, as well as sautéed eggplant and okra, bangus, grilled Filipino-style chicken, and crispy pork belly.

Marino Anagnostopoulos, whose family owns Simpatico Restaurant (2222 West 4th Avenue), describes over the phone how after midnight Easter services, Greeks traditionally eat magiritsa, a lamb offal soup. Anagnostopoulos was born here but his father would regularly take him to Kalamata, Greece, to “make me Greek”.

Here, celebrating Easter with his friends, he has whole roast pig or, as an alternative, lamb marinated in salt, pepper, lemon juice, and olive oil and roasted for eight or nine hours until tender. There are also grilled lamb and pork chops, keftedes (ground beef and lamb meatballs), spanakopita and tiropita (spinach and cheese phyllo-wrapped pies), and Greek, potato, and macaroni salads.

Sweets include tsoureki, a sweet egg bread, and ekmek, a dessert with a pastry-dough base soaked in honey syrup that’s topped with custard and whipped cream. You can get your Greek Easter fill at Simpatico with roast lamb, Greek meatballs, spanakopita, and plenty of Greek salad.

Anagnostopoulos adds that every Greek family has its own Easter traditions. One commonality, though, across such a range of customs is the bringing together of good food and family to mark the Easter holiday.