Easter Traditions

Today is Easter Sunday, and with the world celebrating the traditional Christian belief that Jesus rose from the dead, I had time to reflect on the Easters past and thought I would share a few of them here.

Last night while I was making the makowiec (poppy seed cake) for my family to share, I remember the time when my grandmother Sophie taught my mother to make the very same cake with a prune or apricot filling. Sophie was right-handed, and my mother was left-handed, so it was a comical learning experience for both of them. Sophie was mixing the dough with her right hand, and my mother was mixing with her left, both on the same side of the table. Flour was flying everywhere, and before the task was done, both were covered with flour and laughing as I had never seen them laugh before or since. The resulting cakes were wonderful, and knowing they had been done in tandem made them all the more delicious to me.

To my knowledge, no one in the family continued making those cakes after my mother passed, so I took it upon myself to learn how. What I thought was a simple task turned out to be very complicated, and I suddenly had great respect for the reasoning of making the cakes ahead of time. By ahead of time, I mean starting the cakes early the day before serving. It took a VERY long time to put this cake together, and my creation was finally completed at about 10:30 last night. I put about 4 hours into it, all told. If all goes well and it doesn't suck, I will, in all likelihood, make it again for the holidays, but will make it with prune and apricot filling.

In researching Polish Easter traditions, I came across some practices that I had forgotten. For example, I had completely forgotten that we used to take our filled Easter baskets to church to have the priest bless them. This practice is called Swieconka. Baskets were filled with cakes, fruits and candy. Also, the coloring and writing on the eggs is still practiced today. The eggs which are painted in one color are called "malowanki" or "kraszanki". If patterns are etched with a pointed instrument on top of the paint, the eggs are then called "skrobanki" or "rysowanki". The eggs decorated with the use of treated wax are called "pisanki".

Later on today, we will be having a baked ham for dinner, complete with sweet potatoes, creamed spinach, peas and carrots, and whole kernel corn. I suppose I should make some biscuits or cornbread to go with it, but honestly, after cooking last night and this morning's breakfast treats, I feel like I've done enough. Oh, the verdict on the poppy seed cake? Thumbs up!

Nazdrowie'

Packzi Puta