Easter barbecue: origins, tips, and secrets for perfect meat

Easter Monday has always been the quintessential celebration to enjoy with friends and good food. Riverbanks, meadows, and parks fill up with groups of friends armed with meat, wine, and beer, ready to inaugurate the barbecue season on a memorable day trip. If the weather permits and grants you mild temperatures and a sunny afternoon, organizing the Easter Monday barbecue, a nice outing, will be fun and rewarding, allowing you to serve incredibly tasty dishes! Discover with us the origins of this celebration, how to prepare your perfect barbecue, what types of meat to buy for grilling, and what to pair with a meat barbecue.
 

Easter Monday barbecue, legend and history of a religious celebration

Easter Monday, as we know, has always been the quintessential celebration to enjoy with friends and good food. Initially, the famous yet simple tradition that the Easter Monday lunch was made by the disciples of Emmaus spread, but the reality is different, and the meaning as well. The church considers it a sin to eat red meat on Good Friday. The tradition of the Easter Monday barbecue, viewed from the Catholic perspective, symbolizes the return of happiness and therefore also of satiety. From Friday to Easter Sunday, it is indeed "a sin" to eat excessively. The origin of this celebration is actually not very far from us: it was introduced during the first republic to celebrate Easter on Sunday without worrying about the working day that follows. The outing away from home, in the form of a picnic or meat barbecue in equipped locations, is a moment of celebration. It’s worth noting that this tradition can be traced back even before Easter itself: the resurrection of Tammuz. Tammuz, whose symbol is the Tau (!), was a god honored by ancient prophets, mentioned even by Ezekiel. His death coincides with the arrival of the cold seasons, while his resurrection coincides with late spring, a period when, coincidentally, Easter also falls. In Russia, it is a tradition to go eat, the day after Orthodox Easter, amidst tombs. In this way, a bond is created between the happiness of the living and the serenity of the dead.

Easter Monday barbecue, tips for a dream barbecue

An impeccable cooking of the meat is the result of perfect embers, the right temperatures, and precise timing. The secret? Start preparing everything in time, without rushing. A light white coating tells us that the charcoal is ready to perform at its best. One must also carefully calculate the temperature at which we will cook our dishes to avoid excessive or insufficient embers. The meat to be cooked on our BBQ should not come straight from the refrigerator. Why? A too strong thermal excursion between the meat and the grill causes a rapid drop in temperature and, as a reaction, the meat would lose precious juices. So, room temperature always. Seasoning the meat before cooking is always a good rule: a few hours before your friends arrive, prepare a sauce with lemon juice or white wine, extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic, onion, thyme, bay leaf, parsley, and let the meat soak for 2-3 hours. Tastes are tastes, but for cooking, we recommend: white meats should never be cooked rare but "medium," like veal and lamb, or even well done, like pork, rabbit, turkey, and chicken. Conversely, the good rule is that red meats are served rare, but as already mentioned, everyone has their own tastes!

Easter Monday barbecue, what types of meat to buy

Beef, veal, pork, chicken, and more, there are cuts that absolutely must not be missing from your Easter Monday barbecue. Beef is among those that withstand high-temperature cooking best, which is perfect for grilling. To ensure excellent results, the recommended cuts are: tenderloin and sirloin, ribeye, rump, loin, round, and flank. You can also prepare hamburgers, using meat with a good fat percentage to avoid them drying out. Veal is a less commonly used meat for grilling, being more tender than beef and preferring a faster cooking time. If you use a cut rich in fat, the result will be good. However, the king of Easter Monday barbecues is undoubtedly pork. Chops, loin, capocollo, spare ribs, and ribs: these are the best cuts for a pork barbecue. Don’t forget, sausages, luganega, pancetta, and skewers. For those who don’t love red meat, chicken can come to the rescue: thighs, drumsticks, and wings are the preferred pieces, if you want to use the breast, marinate the meat first to keep it tender even after cooking. Finally, it’s a tradition of Easter, but it can also be eaten on Easter Monday, lamb: thick and tender chops or arrosticini, also lamb grilled has a flavor that provides great satisfaction.

Easter Monday barbecue, what to pair with the meat

Beer and wine should never be missing from a proper Easter Monday barbecue. From Piedmont to Veneto, descending into Emilia Romagna and then Tuscany, and then going down to Sicily and shifting to Sardinia, red wine often dominates in the Easter Monday barbecue. Italy is a major producer, and on Spaghetti & Mandolino, you can find numerous labels capable of satisfying even the most discerning palates. Valpolicella, Barolo, Lambrusco, Montepulciano, Chianti, Nero d’Avola, Cannonau, are just some of the prestigious DOCs not to be missed. Now you know everything you need to make your Easter Monday a memorable day, hurry to shop on Spaghetti & Mandolino!

Francesco Scuderi

S&M