Seudah Mafseket with Egg Dipped in Ash (Pre-Tisha B'Av Mourner's Meal)

The practice of eating a mourner's meal on the afternoon before Tisha B'Av consisting of bread, water, and a hard-boiled egg — the foods of mourners — eaten alone and seated on the floor. The specifically Ashkenazic custom of dipping the egg in ash to recall mourning is an additional layer documented from medieval Rhineland practice. The egg-in-ash practice is specifically Ashkenazic and spread from Rhineland communities through German, Polish, and Hungarian Jewry. Sephardic authorities (Abudarham, Kol Bo, Ben Ish Hai) codify the meal's restrictions without the ash custom, creating a documented Ashkenazic–Sephardic divergence.