The tradition of baking hot cross buns on Good Friday

Human life largely centres on networks of interpersonal relationships that food strengthens and sacralises. We see our identity, traditions, laws, and holidays in terms of the food we eat.

- Chinmay Damle

Many of our foods embody potent symbols, and the rituals of food preparation enhance our religious experience.

Lonavla was the chosen destination for the annual camp of the American missionaries in 1896. In an account of the camp written for the "Woman's Missionary Friend", Mary R Carroll who was visiting India from the US for the first time, mentioned how hot cross buns made an interesting appearance at the campsite on Good Friday.

The camp was annually held at Easter time, because Good Friday and Easter Monday, with the intervening days, were government holidays, and people were free to attend the meetings.

Among those attending the camp was Pundita Ramabai and fifty of her students, most of them widows. Less than half of them were Christians. For Carroll, it was a beautiful sight to see Pundita, in her snow-white robes, sitting in the shade of the trees, amid the company of women, teaching them from God's book.

Five of the schools run by the American Marathi Mission were there too. And then there were the Bhimjibhoys—father, mother, one daughter, and two sons. The family was one of the first Parsee converts in India.

The meetings were conducted by an American evangelist and a native Christian from Ceylon, known as Tamil David.

Good Friday was the first day of the camp. At around 11 in the morning, when the first meeting had just gotten over, everyone was startled by a loud shout—“Hot Cross Buns!” It was the butler of the Bhimjibhoy family who had come from Bombay with baskets full of hot cross buns for Good Friday.

As the presumed anniversary of the day of the Crucifixion, Good Friday had for ages been solemnly observed throughout Christian Europe. It was the only one besides Christmas which was honoured by a general suspension of business. All of England ate hot cross buns on this day.