You may have seen it in your bakery, here comes the time of Oschter Lammele or Oschterlammla in the Haut-Rhin. The Paschal lamb… Oh no, this Pascal is not a lamb, and it’s not him we’re talking about. Well, the Easter lamb, therefore, is the oldest symbol associated with the festival of Oschtere, and this before the eggs and of course the hare. It was the apostle Paul who compared the dead Christ on the cross to a lamb who offered himself as a sacrifice for the sins of many. In the Middle Ages, lambs, which have a cuter physique than their cries, were part of the much appreciated ritual gifts, obligatory or not, linked to the Easter period.
One of the oldest known mentions of this custom dates back to the 12th century, and concerns the canons of the Strasbourg cathedral chapter. Each of them received at Easter three stuffed lambs. So stuffed with what, we don’t know, but that’s not the point. They were not only gifts, the lambs were also part of the royalties in kind that the peasants or subordinates had to give to their superiors, lords or abbeys. Today, the paschal lamb is a pastry that makes everyone in the family happy, the Oschterlammele!
The secret is the schlouck de kirsch in the dough, and a pretty Soufflenheim pottery mold to form it well, of course! On Easter Sunday, the children went during the afternoon to their godfathers and godmothers, and wished them: “a gléckligi Oschtera, Alleluia” or “ich wensch eich ein freudenreiches Alleluia”. Happy Easter, then, but these were the consecrated expressions.
And in gratitude, they received a form of counter-gift, well, there it is also in relation to food, they received Oschterlammala, but also sometimes Osterwecken, Osterbrod and multicolored eggs.