Happy Easter
We'll be starting our Easter morning with a basket of simple foods that we took to John's parent's church to be blessed for a traditional (at least for my husband's family) Polish Easter morning breakfast . It includes bread (both egg bread and more traditional rolls), butter (in the shape of a butter lamb), salt, pepper, and horseradish (representing the the flavors of life), hard boiled eggs (we chose brown eggs, but the traditional eggs are white eggs boiled with onion skins which turns them a lovely brown/purple color and gives the eggs a light oniony flavor) and two kinds of fabulous kielbasa. The thick sausage is called wiejska (vee-ay-ska) and the thin sausage is called kabanosy (kah-bin-oh-sey), both of which are flavored strongly with garlic, though the kabanosy is a leaner sausage than the wiejska and is often served by itself with no more preparation than slicing, while the wiekska is often cooked a bit more. Some families will also take sugar lambs and lamb-shaped cakes to be blessed, but we stick with simple, non-sweet foods to have for breakfast.
Easter breakfast is meant as a simple meal, to be shared with family to celebrate Christianity's "Return of the King" and is generally a true "breaking of the fast" as good Catholics will have at least abstained from meat from Good Friday until Easter morning. I don't really fall into that good Catholic category, but I do enjoy this tradition. Easter is definitely a day of eating -- a big Easter dinner is also served later in the afternoon/early evening that is also usually a big family event. John and I are lucky this year. We'll be sharing the day with his family and my parents, which doesn't happen very often.
Happy Easter to those of you that celebrate the holiday. A beautiful spring weekend to everyone else.
aw, happy Easter. Enjoy the day with the families.
[mmm kabanosy -- I love khabanosy (introduced to it by my Russian hub/in-laws). yum!]
Happy Easter! My husband's Easter isn't until next weekend - I always look forward to the hot dogs! Yes hot dogs - for their break the fast. Have a wonderful day with your family.
That is very interesting. My dad is currently living in Poland and he said the Polish "take Easter very seriously" and well now I understand a bit of what he meant. Enjoy!
Your basket looks delicious! Happy Easter.
mmm, i love egg breads. do you eat hoska? it's my favorite! where do you buy your sausage? my family eats kielbasa when we want sausage like that. but our Easter is just "plain ol" Christian, i guess you could put it. dinner is leg o lamb and grandma's mashed potatoes ...
I used to make my kielbasa (I used to do a lot of things before knitting and spinning took over my life!) but my husband found a Polish butcher who makes it fresh at Easter. We poach it in beer and chicken broth, then grill it. No one around here does the blessing of the food, but for sure in the town where we both grew up! Thanks for reminding me of that tradition.
Did you have the joy of making your own horseradish- we did and despite the tears I have to say it is worth it - what better way to start Easter Morning than hardboiled egg with a spoon of homemade horseradish to knock you socks off (maybe by next year I will have my own homemade socks too) and clear out your sinuses
Hope your Easter is great as well. Thanks for posting about this tradition. It sounds like a wonderful way to celebrate the resurrection.
Your lovely Easter basket reminded me of my own Russian Orthodox relatives, and their baskets for the Easter Vigil Service. My aunt told me a wonderful story once: my grandmother had picked up her father for the Easter Vigil, and he rode in the passenger seat of the car to the church with the basket on his lap, complete with its very special linens and food inside (meats, butter, salt, bread, etc) to be blessed before reintroducing into the meals again after Easter. Because it was nearly midnight, apparently a police officer wanted to know why this young lady in her 30s and an older man were out on a Saturday night, and pulled them over. Grandma knew her daddy had a mischievous streak, and told him to be quiet when the office walked up to the car. But when the officer asked what they were out doing, her daddy simply replied, 'Isn't it obvious? We're going on a picnic!' The officer let them ride away.
Happy Easter!
Blessing the morning breakfast foods is a tradition in my family, as well. It's so nice to see that others do the same. Happy Easter!
I so enjoyed hearing about your traditions. It is important to have 'things' to do on special days. It makes us feel at home no matter where we are. Happy Easter right back at 'cha.
I hope you and John had a Happy Easter with your families!
Reading about your basket made me think of my own family's traditions. My grandfather and I used to take our baskets to get blessed and my grandmother made her own horseradish. We had a very similar breakfast when I was growing up. Now that I live in Indiana I haven't had a basket blessed and we don't always get together with family for Easter, it's too bad. It's such a lovely tradition. Thanks for sharing!