Tale of Mimi, matriarchies, manicotti: Easter goes digital
For many families across the world, Easter looked different this year: The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) kept everyone in their homes, preventing church services and family dinners.
My family has never been very religious. Easter has always been centered around bringing the family together with my grandmother, Mimi, at the helm of the annual celebration. For as long as I can remember, Easter Sunday festivities were held at her house, where she prepared an egg hunt for all of her grandchildren in the morning. Each one of us had six eggs of a specific color to find — mine being purple — and inside these eggs was a small amount of money and some chocolates.
After the egg hunt, we would all go back inside for a major feast. Many families center their Easter dinner around ham, which we did always have, but the Easter staple for us was Mimi’s homemade manicotti. She always prepared the manicotti the Friday before Easter, when most of the grandkids would be off from school. We’d all cram into her kitchen, eager to help.
Mimi would start off by making between 40 and 50 crepe-like pasta circles which were laid out on the table. Each of us kids would form an assembly line, spreading her homemade marinara sauce, ricotta, mozzarella and parmesan across each of the circles.
We would occasionally be interrupted by my Pop Pop, who would always steal some of the mozzarella to snack on, much to Mimi’s annoyance. Once the circles were filled, we’d then roll them up like a burrito, lay them on a tray and drizzle them with extra sauce and cheese. They’d stay in her fridge until Sunday, when she’d bake them for everyone to enjoy.
In the wake of COVID-19, I haven’t been able to spend time with Mimi the way I normally would during this holiday season. I don’t think I've ever missed out on helping her make the manicotti — last year I came back home from my old school in Boston during the middle of finals week just to help her cook our favorite Easter food.
This year, we weren’t even sure if we’d get a chance to taste this holiday staple, considering there would be no family feast and no eager grandchildren working diligently alongside Mimi to prepare the massive number of manicottis it takes to feed everyone. Despite these setbacks, Mimi is stubborn. She worked for hours to make the manicottis herself. Although we couldn't have the meal together, each household was able to pick up a few trays of Mimi’s specialty to bake at home.
As for the egg hunt, Mimi refused to let the grandkids go a year without their eggs. We tried telling her it was okay, considering 3 out of 6 of us are now legal adults who can survive without a few extra dollars and some candy, but she is not the type to take no for an answer.
We ended up having a social distancing egg hunt: Each family had a time slot where they could come to Mimi’s to find their eggs rather than all come together to hunt at once. Mimi and Pop Pop wore face masks and watched from a distance on their porch.
While my family was able to make-do, it definitely felt weird to be isolated from my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. My youngest cousin, who is 5 years old, doesn't fully understand the COVID-19 outbreak and was distraught that he couldn’t hunt for eggs with the “big kids” and have dinner at Mimi’s house.
As a college student, the times I get to see all my cousins are becoming less and less frequent, and Easter is one of the few days each year I was guaranteed to catch up with the rest of my family, until now.
It is easy to feel upset when thinking about how much we all missed out on this year, but this Easter also serves as a reminder of how lucky I am to have a matriarch like Mimi leading the family. Rather than accepting that our holiday would be ruined this year, she did everything she could to recreate our Easter traditions while still ensuring no one is sacrificing their health for it.
