L'viv Market Report: Easter Edition

Yesterday, on the first sunny day in more than a week, my friend Antonina and her baby Nicole joined me for a trip to two different markets to check out what was on offer for Easter.  We found a great deal, and here's just a bit of what we saw.  Enjoy!  Above, tiny bread lambs, that as I understand it, are saved for an entire year, and then offered to the birds.

Vendors are always a bit hesitant to have their photo taken, but many of them will consent to a request with a shy smile.  The man was selling a variety of dried things, including these dried cherries he offered me a taste of.

The some of everything table.  Preserved cherries, dried beans, pickled cabbage, and at the very top right, dill seed.

 Spring onions and lovely ramps!

Paska, of course, the traditional Easter bread, usually baked in a can.

Another vendor who was reluctant, but then gave me the greatest smile!  Below, soft cheese, like a farmers' cheese.

Preserved fruits, milk, and in the background, chicken.

The most studious looking butcher I've ever seen.

We stopped and had a long chat with this young man, who was selling along the street with his mother.  They come from a small village in the Carpathians, and come once a year to L'viv to sell the baskets that the family makes all year round.  He shared a description of the process, and I happily bought a small one to bring home.  The reddish varnish is more traditional, but I like the natural ones.

Horseradish, traditional for inclusion in your Easter basket, along with bread, salt, and egg.

Below, homemade salo, of course.

And finally, onion sets for planting.  Welcome spring!

"A Very Home Place"

Just before Easter, I’d been emailing with my friend Tania Kochubinska, who lives and works in Kyiv, about another matter and asked her to send me her family’s Easter pictures. She sent several, saying although her family isn’t particularly religious, they all go to a family house for Easter. So of course, I wanted to know more about the place and the experience. Here’s what Tania shared with me.
 

We are not a religious family, but the tradition of painting eggs and baking Easter-cake is really kept. And recipe of baking Easter-cake, which is still being used by us, comes from my great grandma. Notwithstanding that I never went to a church to bless the Easter-cake (I used to go the church with my grandmother, but it was not an occasion on a special religious feast) we keep on baking it and just having always a very solemn dinner on Easter. And of course the tradition of battling with painted eggs is also kept, since childhood it is the most impressive and performative aspect of Easter. These photographs in this post were made in the house of my great grandma, we often go there. Sadly my grandparents are not alive, but the house is kept, and we go there. My mother and my father go there more often than I do.

It is not a village. My great grandmother was born in a village not far from this place, but it is a small industrial (used to be industrial) town of Konotop. It is famous for its important railway junction (all roads to Moscow go through Konotop). It is also famous because Kazimir Malevich is said to have worked for two years in this town as a draughtsman and there is a water tower designed by Vladimir Shukhov. The city is located in the East of the country, in the region of Sumy. My grandmother and grandfather lived there, and my great grandmother lived in this house, which is located in a private housing area.

Coming back to Easter again, frankly speaking in my family the sacral sense of Easter is not kept, but it is just a very family feast for me. We always have a dinner with aspic, Easter cake, eggs, it is only time a year, when we eat so many eggs, it is because of battling with eggs. Each holds a painted egg and tries to break the egg of the opponent and to keep his/her egg safe. That means we have lots of eggs to eat!

This house is like a very home place. Of course it is different for me than my mother. She used to live in that house since she was around 14 years old. For me it is about childhood. When I was young there were a lot of children coming from different cities (mainly Kyiv and Kharkiv) to visit their grandparents. There are different fruit trees left, but it is not about special gardening there-- we have flowers, some salads, but it is not the goal to grow fruits and vegetables, it is more about the atmosphere. When I go there I often think that it is really nice to have a private house. Because you feel your own planet there, but at the same time you are disconnected from the world.

Easter Baskets in Kharkiv

Here in the United States, Easter baskets are most often filled with chocolate rabbits and jelly beans.  In Ukraine, the Easter baskets--and their contents--are an important part of Easter religious ceremonies, one of the most important holidays in the Christian year, but with traditions hearkening back to pre-Christian times.  The two years I spent in Ukraine at Easter time,  the entire week between Willow Sunday and Easter was enthusiastically filled with cleaning of houses and grounds,  general sprucing up, and often, the purchase of new Easter baskets. 

Although my Easter this year was spent at home here in the US, my friend Olga Chermaska shared photos from the morning worship service for children and the blessing of Easter baskets at the Ukrainian Orthodox church her family attends in Kharkiv.

She writes,

There is a tradition on Easter basket to put all the products that have been banned in the past [for Lent].  For example, sausage, Easter cakes, dairy products and eggs. The basket should be beautifully decorated. Eggs are usually painted in different colors. Each color means something green: eternal life, yellow - joy, red - the blood of Jesus, blue - water and sky.

I'm sure the church rang with the traditional greeting, Khyrstos Vostres!  Christ is Risen! In every basket, a paska, Easter bread, is traditionally included (although I have seen Easter baskets containing Coke and other modern foods as well).   Each region has its own special paska,  but here, thanks to Festive Ukrainian Cooking by Marta Pisetska,  is a recipe from the Chyhyryn in Cherkas'ka Oblast,  south of Kyiv.

Chyhyrynska Paska

1 1/2 cups cake flour

1 2/3 cups sugar

12 egg whites

1 1/2 tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp almond extract

1/4 tsp salt

powdered sugar

Line the bottom and sides of a 10 inch tube pan (or 2 tall cans, to be traditional) with buttered brown paper.  Sift flour and sugar separately, then sift flour with 1/2 cup sugar.  Beat egg whites with wire whip until foamy.  Add cream of tartar, fold in vanilla, almond extract, and salt.  Whip until glossy and stiff but not dry.  Gradually whip in remaining sugar, a little at a time.  Sift some of the flour-sugar mixture over egg whites, fold gently, and repeat until all flour is used.  Pour into prepared pan or cans and bake in preheated 350 degree oven.  Note:  the tube pan requires 45-50 minutes,  the cans about 30 minutes.  When done, hang pan upside down or invert cans for one hour until set.  Remove, place on platter and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

You can see a full set of photos here. Thanks again to Olga and her family for sharing these!

Easter: Paska and Pysanky

I know, Easter is already long past.   And Easter is one of the most significant holidays in Ukraine, with a host of food traditions surrounding it.  I keep thinking that I will get to a long post about various Easter foods and traditions, and don't quite get to it.  So instead, I decided to just share some pictures taken around Kyiv this year and point readers to some additional information.  And of course, share your stories and photos with us!

First--paska.  The photos at the top of the post show several different kinds of paska, the Ukrainian Easter bread.  The one on the top was made for me by my friend Valentyna--it's just a small one.  The ones on the bottom were on display at an event at the Ivan Honchar Museum here in Kyiv--they are from different regions, each of whom had their own traditional style.   Many people bake their own paska, but the stores and markets are filled with ones to purchase.  Below, the dairy ladies at Bessarabka Market also have paska for sale before Easter.  Want to try making your own or learning more?  click here for a recipe and more information.

Next--pysanky--the painted eggs that are probably the best known Ukrainian Easter tradition.   Just before Easter, vendors spring up selling painted eggs--some are raw eggs, some have had the yolk and white blown out, and others are wooden ones. Pysanky date back to pre-Christian times and are usually done with a wax-resist method.  For a slide show and more information from the Ukrainian Museum in New York, click here.   The two pictures below show pysanky purchased in two different cities.  The first picture are ones are from Kyiv, the second from L'viv.

And finally,  the Easter basket.   In the US, we think of an Easter basket as a children's activity, filled with candy and brought by the Easter bunny.  Here in Ukraine, a basket is filled with  food and taken to the church to be blessed.   Below, a list of traditional foods that should be included (thanks www.brama.com for the information) but I have seen many other foods in the basket--snack foods, soda, vodka--as the tradition grows continues but also becomes contemporary.

PASKA	Place a candle into the center of the paska and light it when the priest begins the blessing ceremony.
BABKA
PYSANKY	Easter eggs, new ones every year
KRASHANKY	dyed eggs - variety of colors, but there must be a red one
EGGS	hard boiled and peeled
SALT	a small amount
BUTTER	should be nicely shaped and decorated with whole cloves and placed on a small dish or on top of the cheese
CHEESE	sweet cheese: mix farmer cheese with confectionery sugar, raisins, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg. Place on a dish and on top you can place the butter.
HORSERADISH	a piece of the root or prepared horseradish with beets
KOVBASA	sausage - a small ring

And finally, some pictures of Kyivans with their baskets on Easter weekend and a priest blessing baskets at St. Volodomyr.

Easter at the Bulgakovs

Every year, the Bulgakov Museum here in Kyiv (former home of writer Mikhail Bulgakov, author of The Master and Margarita and The White Guard)  recreates the Bulgakov family's Easter table from one hundred or so years ago,  based on a historic photo.  More blog posts on Ukrainian Easter to come, but a quick sharing of a lovely re-creation, with the paska (traditional bread at the back of the table)  and pysanky (eggs) still widely present today, and the historic photo on which it's based.