What spring festivals remind us about food, family and fresh starts

Spring has a way of bringing us together. Light stretches into the evening, markets brim with green shoots and, across kitchens, tables begin to fill again. Over these weeks, four festivals – Eid, Nowruz, Passover and Easter – bring something distinct in story and ritual, yet all four are threaded with food, family and the quiet insistence of renewal.

Eid arrives at the end of Ramadan with a particular kind of joy – one sharpened by restraint and softened by generosity. The table is abundant but never careless: dates to break the fast, fragrant rice dishes, slow-cooked meats, sweets soaked in syrup or dusted with sugar. In many homes there is maamoul, a delicate semolina biscuit filled with dates or nuts, and whole spreads of celebratory dishes tied to memory as much as to taste.

Cooking for Nowruz, the Persian New Year, feels like opening the windows after a long winter. Falling with the spring equinox, it gestures towards new life. The Haft Seen table – set with seven symbolic items – sits at the heart of the celebration, alongside dishes as green and fresh as the season demands. There is kuku sabzi (kookoo sabzi), dense with herbs and tasting like the garden condensed into a single bite, and jewelled rice scattered with fruit and nuts.

Passover is rooted in the retelling of a journey from hardship to freedom. The Seder table is structured and symbolic, every element carrying meaning: bitter herbs for suffering, haroseth for mortar, matzo for the haste of departure. And yet, within that framework, there is warmth and variation – soups, slow-cooked meats, flourless cakes.

Sweetness and light … flourless orange and almond cake by Claudia Roden. Photograph: Jean Cazals/The Observer

Easter, too, is about emergence, a moment when the table opens up again, full of colour, generosity and joy. Eggs – painted, baked into breads or hidden for children to find – symbolise new beginnings. There are lamb roasts, spiced buns, bright spring puddings. This classic hot cross bun recipe remains a touchstone, alongside broader Easter preparations that celebrate lamb, eggs and seasonal baking.

What’s striking, when you lay these celebrations side by side, is not their difference but their similarities. Each one speaks in its own language of resilience and renewal. Each gathers people around a table and asks them to pause, remember and begin again. This is what the season offers us, if we are willing to take it: a chance to mark time not just by dates, but by hope.

We have been lucky enough to get to celebrate all of these holidays here in the UK and abroad – a Persian-Danish friend included us in their Nordic Iranian celebration. Our friend Brigit, American and Catholic, invited us to a feast that includes her buttermilk fried chicken and a run around a south London park for the kids to collect chocolate eggs, with some real eggs dyed red for the Greek contingent. We have been guests and hosts at many Passover and Eid tables over the years, with people from every denomination around our table united by a shared desire to come together.

Not so long ago, celebrating each other’s festivals felt more ordinary – here in this country, friends would join unfamiliar rituals and meals. Curiosity was met with generosity. Conflicts make us less open, less tolerant of each other. As the worst of it plays out around the world, it is worth holding on to the things that bring us together, like table, food, celebration, communion – the best of us, really.

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Our week in foodBake off … a scene from The President’s Cake.

Slice of life | Still on the subject of baked goods, the film The President’s Cake will change your appreciation of cake for ever. It’ll break your heart and also make you want to get a pet rooster. Cannot recommend this one enough.

City to city | Sarit and I went on a little road trip with our good friend Samin to Edinburgh and Bristol, two cities we adore. Noto is a place we go to every time we are in Edinburgh and it never disappoints, neither did Ardfern, and we will never come back from Bristol without a suitcase full of baked goods from Hart’s.

Soup-er ideas | We pass by most social media-driven food fads, but every so often something intrigues us (the last one was the invisible apple cake, which we still make), and we are now gearing up the courage to make the no-water chicken soup. The idea is to very slowly braise chicken, vegetables and seasoning in a tightly lidded pot so that they cook in their own flavourful juices, which turn into a very concentrated soup. Despite the silly name, this somehow makes sense. We will report the results …

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