Religion and culture play an enormous role not only in what we think is "normal" to eat, but also in secular and non-secular celebrations. Religious holidays are marked by fasting, eschewing meat, or leavened bread (as but a few examples).
I apologize that I don't have the exact source of this description--I will post credit once I track it down.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE SEDER AND THE HAGGADAH
Haggadah means narration, telling or recital in Hebrew. The Passover Haggadah describes the order of the events and rituals in the Passover Seder using a Rabbinically formulated and highly structured framework that is organized into 15 steps. The Passover Haggadah is a collection of literary works from many time periods, not all of which are in chronological or any other logical order and the Passover rituals are performed at various points in and amongst all these literary works. The works in the Haggadah include biblical passages, psalms or hymns, benedictions or rituals, prayers, explanations of the rituals, blessings, stories, short dialogues and rabbinic literature.
The Passover Haggadah is based on a Passover Seder described in the Talmud. This Seder was held in Bnai B’rak during the time of the roman occupation of Palestine, where Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi Elazer Ben Azarya, Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Tarfon were reclining and discussing the Exodus from Egypt. The order of this Seder was a Rabbinic version of a 1st. century C.E. Greco-Roman ritualized meal called a “symposia”. The original rabbinic version of the Seder began with serving and eating the meal, followed by spontaneous questions among the Seder participants to prompt a discussion, a Midrashic recounting of the Exodus from Egypt and finally, a recitation of the ten plagues. By 200 C.E., the Seder meal was postponed until after the liturgy was recited and set questions (i.e. the four questions) replaced the spontaneous questions. Over time, the narrative to the meal grew larger and more varied, reflecting different rabbinical streams of thought and cultural influences.
Rabbis have encouraged the reinterpretation of the meanings of the events in the Passover story to both adapt to changing times and to reflect various political and religious philosophies within Judaism and to reach out to as many Jews as possible.
THE SEDER PLATE
The entire story of the Haggadah is contained in the Seder plate: everything on it symbolizes an aspect of the Exodus:
ZEROA, a roasted bone, evokes the Paschal lamb, which our ancestors offered to God.
BEITZA, a boiled egg, whose roundness symbolizes the circle of life and death.
MAROR, a bitter herb, reminds us of the bitterness of Egyptian bondage.
CHAROSET, a mixture of nuts, fruit, wine and spices, represents the mortar our ancestors used to build the pyramids in Egypt.
KARPAS, parsley or another green vegetable, represents hope and renewal.
CHAZERET, the bitter herb for the “sandwich” which we eat later, following the custom established by Hillel the Elder, as a reminder that our ancestors “ate matzah and bitter herbs together”.
You can read more about Passover and learn about vegetarian celebrations of Passover as well.
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-- Posted by: Llqijssb at July 15, 2009 12:18 PM