Russian Easter cakes.
It's Russian Easter right now. Yesterday we observed Good Friday with our house group with a pseudo passover meal and the reading of the Passion story. We had bitter herbs and a Jewish apple salad, but were unable to get our hands on lamb, so we had chicken instead! I wasn't particularly set on an authentic Jewish meal and was very content to do our own hybrid version.
The picture above is a Russian Easter tradition, the Easter Cake. They don't do hot cross buns here and while painting eggs is an old tradition (something we did at protestant Easter this year), chocolate eggs are conspicuously absent. I have tried doing some research on the Easter Cake and turned nothing up. A Russian friend said he thinks it may represent that Jesus is the Bread of Life, but he has never heard any orthodox teaching on it.
4 comments:
wow, doesnt it seem really strange having easter this late, altough i must say we did have easter really really early here this year and that was a bit odd, and gah on easter eggs? i mean im not a fan of chocolate thus i dont really ever eat many, if any but still thet fact that they are around make it all a little bit more like easter, but hotcross buns i love, i cant believe that you dont have them over there! hmm in saying that i realised how caught up in the comercilism of it i am, even though i am aware of it and its one of the things i hate about the whole population celebrating our religious fesitvals with out really meaning and understanding why we celebrate them, yet with out the comercilism it wouldnt be the same, and i cant really see my self liking it with out it, yet i hate it. i supose this is going to be one of the really intersting things that i shall face next year in japan ( if i go). iuve talked about this a bit more in my blog http://watashi-no-chyuu-shin-no-tochi.blogspot.com/2008/03/no-easter.html (i still dont know how to do links the fancy way :( )
at least in russia they still celerbrate these festivals, but from what you have said or maybe ive just missread, that there is less of the commercial factor in it?
i love reading your blogs
*hugs*
God bless
Love Sharnelle
Thanks for this - I'd forgotten about the Easter cakes, even though I always bought one when I was in Russian at Easter time. Thinking about it, they are a bit like the Italian panattone which is popular at Christmas and really catching on in the UK. Makes great bread and butter pudding!
These look like the paska that my Mennonite friends here make. Basically a rich bread with icing and sprinkles on top. I have made it a couple of times, but always have some made by Wendy's Mom so haven't bothered doing my own lately. This is served with a special spread that includes cottage cheese and boiled eggs blended with icing sugar. Some people like it, tohers prefer just spreading butter. As for commercialism, if you make the hot cross buns yourself (as I did this year) and don't buy the chocolate then you are keeping the christian rememberance/festival without getting cought up with the commercialism! :)
Heather
Hi Heather,
We made the hot cross buns at protestant easter, and did find a few chocolate eggs that were expensive and around early for sale.
"Paska" is a derivative of "Pascha" (Russian for easter, from Pasa- passover.) The Mennonites get a lot of their food traditions from Russians and Ukrainians.
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