Yesterday, in my post about Lazarus’ Saturday (April 11, 2009) I mentioned a special dish, used to celebrate the dead: coliva.

Coliva is the Romanian translation of the Greek κόλλυβα (kólliva) and it describes a sweet pudding made of boiled wheat.

This “desert” is used liturgically in both Eastern Orthodox and Greek-Catholic churches. Romania and Greece are not the only two countries that use this culinary delight to celebrate their dead. Variations can be found in Serbia, Russia and Bulgaria too.

Bellow a Romanian recipe, which, unlike the Greek kólliva which contains sesame seeds, almonds, raisins, pomegranates seeds and anise seeds, is much simpler. The reason is that in Romania, many of the ingredients mentioned above are neither traditional, nor affordable for people of the folk.

Ingredients: 1 kg wheat kernel, 250 g sugar, 150 g honey, water to cover the kernels, 240 g crushed walnuts, crunched graham crackers as needed, powdered sugar as needed, vanilla, fine zest from 1 lemon, fine zest from 1 orange, colored candy, 100 g milk chocolate grinded fine or cocoa powder.

Since coliva is a ritual dish, its preparation follows a ritual too. The day before the liturgy prepare the wheat as follows:

Wash the wheat kernel with nine waters (one for each of the 9 angel squads in heaven) then boil in a Teflon pot for 2-3 hours at medium heat. Stir thoughtfully with a wooden spoon to prevent the wheat from sticking to the bottom of the pot. When boiled, put content into an enameled pot and covered with a wet towel, so that the composition won’t form a “crust.”

The day of the liturgy:

Sweeten the composition with 250 g sugar and 150 g honey. Flavor with zest from one lemon and one orange and with 1 TBS vanilla.

Add 200 g of the crushed walnuts and stir till all these extra ingredients incorporate in the wheat composition evenly. Your coliva is now almost ready – all it needs is the décor that will make it fit for the liturgy.

Place the composition on a large platter and form the coliva with your hands, respecting its shape – make sure you even the coliva to look like a cake. Coliva can take any form: rectangular, oval or round, and sometimes even “cross.” With the rest of the crushed walnuts and crushed graham crackers cover the coliva on the top and the sides. Add powder sugar and then make your ornaments out of chocolate and candy. You can even use half walnuts to form a cross or to ornate the sides of the coliva.

I hope the images posted give you some ideas on how to ornate this dish. Coliva is very delicious, and many people choose to eat it in other occasions that those related to death. If you want to do so, simply skip the shaping and decorating.

I had to update this to correct a misspelling (emailed instead of enameled, thank you, Pearl) and to add this sweet video I found on YouTube)

Romanian Coliva Recipe is a post from: Rounite

Easter is the most important Romanian holiday in the Orthodox calendar. I already covered a few traditions last year – and starting today I will write a series of articles that will present even more traditions, itineraries for those who would like to spend Easter in Romania this year, food recipes and more.

Last year I wrote about the Palm Day, which is the Sunday before Easter each year; the Great Thursday, which is the last Thursday before Easter; Easter traditions, Painting Eggs; and traditional Easter food – including Romanian sweet bread and lamb haggis.

This year will take a look at Lazarus’ Saturday, the Great Friday, The Small Fountain and Good People’s Easter. Food recipes to follow: coliva, Romanian “Pasca” – Easter cake with cottage cheese; Easter lamb soup; and lamb roast – yes, the lamb plays a very important role in the Romanian Easter cuisine.

Lazarus’ Saturday – Saturday, 11 April 2009

On this day the dead are waiting at the gates of Heaven to be remembered and celebrated, with traditional drinks and dishes like “coliva.” Coliva is the food for the dead and it’s prepared traditionally by widows or close family members of the deceased. The dish is used in various death related occasions, to celebrate and honor the dead. The coliva is usually decorated with a cross motif, made of cocoa or nuts and sugar. The coliva is always blessed in the church by a priest before being consumed. The ceremony is long, but beautiful – the participants join their hands in a ritual “hora.”

Lazarus is Martha and Maria’s brother who was resurrected by Christ before He entered in Jerusalem, but this Lazar doesn’t have too much to do with the Romanian traditions.

A Romanian legend from Bucovina mentions a second Lazarus, whose brother (unnamed) was rich and lived a life of luxury and extravagance. (Legend slightly different from The Rich Man and Lazarus) Poor Lazarus was also ill, and the illness made his friends and wife to leave him. In his condition he could not get a job – his only chance to survive was to beg for food. Once he went to his rich brother’s gate, but the brother denied and family relationship with Lazarus and refused to feed him. Deeply hurt, Lazarus sat down and cried his pain away. Dogs from his brother’s yard noticed his sorrow and famine and brought him food remains from the rich’s man table, who that days was also marrying and had a wedding party.

Lazarus’ brother ordered the servants to chain the dogs. When the party ended, the fiddlers noticed Lazarus, and despite he couldn’t pay them for their effort, they sang for him. The rich brother didn’t like this either, he began making fun of the fiddlers, telling them that the only reward they might receive from poor Lazarus would consist of skin eruptions. When the fiddlers ended their singing, Lazarus indeed rewarded them this way, because, he said, the skin blisters were the only thing in his possession. The singers accepted the gift, only to notice later on that the blisters transformed into gold coins.

Not long after this “miracle” Lazarus found himself on his death bed. He called his brother for help, but the rich man replied that he had no fear of Death and God. When Lazarus died the angels took him to heaven. Soon, his rich brother died too, but the devils burned his fortune and took him to hell.

Another legend, which is also an Easter tradition, comes from Wallachia. In Wallachia Lazarus’ Saturday is called “Lazarica” (which is a diminutive of “Lazarus” or “Lazar”). In the morning of the day, young girls gather and choose the youngest to wear bride’s clothes and jasmine in her hair. The girls then go from house to house, dancing the hora around the “bride” and singing of Lazarus.

According to the Wallachian legend, Lazarus was a young man who asked his mother to bake him bread. As she refused, Lazarus went to the forest with his sheep. He climbed a tree to gather leaves for his sheep, but a branch broke and he fell and died. His sisters found him later, mourned him, bathed him in milk and buried him. The legend also says that Lazarus resurrected and changed into flowers. The connection between the “bride” and Lazarus is not very clear. Romanian folklorists speculate that the origin of the custom is in one of the rituals of Dionysus, who was also celebrated in the Spring. We can certainly see some similarities: a violent death, ritual bath, resurrection and the transformation of the hero in vegetation. Thus Lazarus is a prehistoric deity, like Flora, and they are both celebrated before Easter (Flora = Palm Sunday, celebrated this year Sunday, April 12.).

A third legend places Lazarus as a small boy, brother of Dargobete’s bride (a probable connection to the bride mentioned above). Dragobete’s mother, Baba Dochia, was always mean to Lazarus, giving him the most difficult chores. One Saturday Lazarus asked his mother to bake him pies and then when with his flock of goats to the forest. There he climbed an oak tree to gather buds for his animals. Remembering the pies, and anxious to get home faster to eat them, he fell to his death. His sister looked for him for months, but the young boy was only found on August the 15^th, Saint Marry’s day, covered by grass and flowers.

This legend is the reason why women bake pies on Lazarus’ Saturday and give them to the poor and the children. The pies are also baked in the memory of Lazarus the Poor (from the first legend) who prays to God for the forgiveness of the sins.

In some regions, the girls plant flowers on Lazarus’ Saturday, believing that they will grow faster and bloom more beautifully. Trees are not planted today, because people believe they will only bloom but never make fruits.

Easter in Romania 2009 is a post from: Rounite

Happy Easter! Christ is risen!

I am taking a short moment tonight to wish you all Happy Easter and a blessed year – blessed by the Holy Light of the One Who defied Death tonight. In the morning say a little prayer of joy…

God, make me myrtle and burn me on your altars!

Drink a sip of holy water and taste the body of Christ. Keep your candles burning and let the light shine in your hearts, purifying your souls, lighting the path for a better future, for peace and prosperity for us all.

The Resurrection Mass in Orthodox countries has its most amazing moment at midnight, when the streets are flooded with light: a sea of holy light. People walk home with lit candles, hoping to preserve that light till they arrive home, for the light brings peace, health and prosperity the whole year. Superstitions say that if the light goes off, bad luck will follow.

Images like this are rare, and yet… the more you behold them, the more that you see: power and unity embraced by the Holy Spirit. Today…

Christ is risen!

Repeat after me: Christ is risen! Hristos a inviat!

Now take some time to think what this means: He kept His promise. Our sins are forgiven. The Father, in His holy goodness sacrificed His own son for our redemption. We celebrate life. It’s time for new beginnings.

Happy Easter! Paste fericit!

Christ is risen! Hristos a inviat!

He is truly risen! Adevarat a inviat!

Blessed By the Light is a post from: Rounite

It’s the Thursday before Easter, also known as the Great Thursday or the Thursday of Sufferings (known in English as the Maundy Thursday, Holy Thursday or even Sheer Thursday) when the orthodox-Christians from Romania celebrate four events: the washing of the Disciples’ feet, the Holy Eucharist and the Last Supper, Christ praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, and Judas’ betrayal.

It’s the day when all graves and the doors of Heaven open and let the dead return home, to spend Easter with their families. Don’t imagine a Halloween-type of celebration, there’s nothing scary about this belief. The return of the dead doesn’t bring evil, the spirits are driven by love of Christ and family rather than by a black desire of haunting the living. It’s believed that they don’t stay indoors, but on the roofs or in the yards so in many regions in Romania people light fires to give them light and to keep them warm.

In Muntenia where I grew up we don’t light fires, but we light candles and we prepare drinks and food for the dead. The food is mostly coliva and colaci. Coliva is a type of cake made of boiled wheat, sweetened with sugar and decorated with nuts and sometimes bonbons. It represents the body of the dead that has to be buried first to come back to life, pretty much as the grain is buried into the ground to grow into a new plant.

image courtesy Alina Dosan

Colaci are nothing else but bread. They can have different shapes and sizes, depending on the region where they are made, but as a general rule, the “colaci” made for the dead are decorated with the holy cross. My grandma used to prepare these colaci early in the morning, to be ready for the evening Mass in the church.

I remember the last time I saw my grandma alive – it was the Holy Week in 2003. The Great Thursday found us preparing colaci and cozonaci and dyeing eggs. My grandmother was ill and weak, but she wouldn’t rest. She had to spend that Thursday as she used to, as she believed to be right in front of God. We usually had only red eggs for Easter, but that year I bought other colors too and we ended up having a rainbow on our table.

I remember being there with my mother and her fiance and that is the last real family feeling I have from home. Each of us was busy doing something: my grandfather prepared a traditional lamb soup, my mother cleaned up the house, her fiance fixed things in the garden, my grandmother made colaci and cozonaci and I dyed eggs.

We were happy. Everything was right, as it was supposed to be: a beautiful spring day, blessed by God, a memory I cherish in my heart forever. My grandma lived another year, till March 2004, when she died peacefully. I was told that the whole village came to see her on her last trip. She was loved by many, for her kindness, for her gentleness, for the way she lived her life – an inspiration to us all.

Aside the somehow macabre superstition about the return of the dead, the Great Thursday is a time of intense preparations for the Easter fiest. It’s believed that those who sleep in the Great Thursday will be lazy the whole year. Women and girls particularly should not sleep, for if they do Joimarita will come to put a spell on their hands, a spell that will make the women unable of working the whole year. So to keep “awake” people work this Thursday, preparing all they need for Easter: cleaning the house, preparing the traditional “Cozonaci,” dyeing eggs. All is allowed, except doing laundry, because Romanians believe that the dirty water will go to the dead.

So tomorrow I’ll be doing at least some of the things I used to do back home: I’ll go shopping for Easter, I’ll dye eggs and I’ll finish cleaning the house – of course I will not do all these things alone, but as you imagine, many little things will keep me busy tomorrow, so there will be no entry here.

But I have a gift for you: a cozonaci recipe courtesy to Netcook.com:

2 lbs. (1 kg.) flour
10 oz. (300g) sugar
1 1/2 cups milk
6 eggs
2 oz. (50g) yeast
7 oz. (200g) butter
2 Tbls. oil
vanilla stick
salt
egg for washing the dough
grease for the pans

Make a started from yeast and a teaspoon of sugar. Mix until the consistency of sour cream, add 2-3 Tablespoons tepid milk and a little flour. Mix well. Sprinkle some flour on top, cover, and let sit in a warm place to rise. Boil the milk with the vanilla stick (cut in very small pieces) and leave it on the side of the range, covered, to keep warm.

Mix the yolks with the sugar and salt, then slowly pour the tepid milk, stirring continuously. Place the risen starter in a large bowl and pour, stirring continuously, the yolk-milk mixture and some flour, a little at a time. Then add 3 whipped egg whites. When you finish this step, start kneading.
Knead, adding melted butter combined with oil, a little at a time, until the dough starts to easily come off your palms. Cover with a cloth and then something thicker (like a blanket). Leave in a warm place to triple in bulk. If during kneading the dough seems too hard, you may add a little milk. If, on the contrary, the dough seems too soft, you may add a little flour.

When the dough has risen well, take a piece of it, place on the floured work surface, give it the desired shape (round, oval, braided, etc.) and place in the baking pan previously greased with butter. Let rise some more in the pan in a warm place.
Wash with egg and bake at medium heat. Take out of the pan as soon as it is done, place on a cloth and let cool.

The Black Thursday is a post from: Rounite

One of the most beautiful Easter traditions is the “Florii” – the Palm Sunday (Duminica Floriilor) – which is the Sunday before Easter (Sunday the 20^th April this year). The holiday has roots before Christianity, in the pagan rituals of Floralia (dedicated to goddess Flora, the goddess of flowers).

The Roman festival of Floralia is dated in 238 B.C and it used to take place around May 1^st. During the five days of the festival, the participants wore flowers in their hair, conducted various rituals of fertility, played games and set the animals free. It was a celebration of the Spring and many of its traditions were adopted and kept by the Christianity. The very name “Florii” reminds of Floralia and the Christian celebration reminds a lot of its pagan counterpart.

All women and men who wear flower names like Florica, Viorica, Liliana, Dalia and so on are celebrated in the Palm Sunday. People go to church with willow branches to have them blessed, and they return with these branches home where they place them around their waist in the belief that illness will stay away. Young girls sleep tonight with basil flowers under their pillows, to dream the one they’ll marry that year.

Although I was born in Bucharest, I grew up in the South, in a region called Muntenia, where my parents and grandparents come from.

I spent there the first 6 years of my life and many school holidays after, till I turned 16 and actually starting to work. I remember Easter as the best time of the year and the Florii as the most beautiful, extraordinary experience. My grandma’s flower garden was one of the most beautiful in the village. She had a wonderful heart and it was reflected in everything she did: the flowers grew more beautiful under her touch, the animals never feared her and followed her everywhere. She was very maternal, gentle and yet strong and determined – the woman I always wanted to be, my role model as a child.

She used to pick up flowers on Florii and prepare beautiful bunches to go to church, where they’d mix with flowers brought by all other women in the village.

The priest, an old, gentle man, would bless them and after the ceremony we’d all return home with willow branches, blessed water, basil flowers and spring flowers from other gardens. I always believed that those flowers were sacred and kept them close.

All week after Palm Sunday we drank blessed water which always smelled like basil early in the morning, on an empty stomach, to purify our bodies. If the weather on Florii was good we were happy because that meant good weather on Easter too – and the Easter Mass takes all believers out of the church at midnight to receive the holly light. I’ll tell you more about this soon. I still have to cover the Great Thursday and the Great Friday, before attempting to describe the most extraordinary religious service I’ve ever experienced.

In the meanwhile… I read today an inspiring blog post about an American woman’s feelings about the Romanian Easter and about my people in general. I felt tears running down while reading: “Romanian folks are generous, caring, strong, faithful people.” I felt blessed by Linda’s words and at the same time I felt the need to jump in the first plane and go back, especially now around Easter when the Romanian spirit shines stronger.

Romania is often called in our folk songs the “poor rich country.” It’s amazing how many people live so poorly, when its land hides black gold (in 1938 Romania was the second largest producer of oil in Europe and the seventh in the world), rich natural resources like methane gas (fifth world producer in 1975), gold, silver, coal, salt and much more. Where did this richness go? Why are Romania’s inhabitants living in poor conditions when the land offers so many possibilities? The answers lay somewhere in my people’s dramatic history. Centuries of foreign occupation and our most recent history (after the second World War) left deep, painful marks and changed our destiny as a nation. Romania’s former glory faded away and it lays now forgotten in history books.

There are however things that no foreign forces could take away from us. Among them our traditions and beliefs. It’s said that the Romanian spirit shines stronger around Easter and I testify that this is true. Easter is the most important holiday in the Orthodox calendar, even stronger than Christmas. The belief in Christ’s resurrection fills the hearts with more hope than his birth on the 25^th of December. Somehow defeating death was always something our predecessors tried to achieve. Remember that back in the old times our ancestors, the Dacians, used to laugh at death

The Palm Sunday in Romania is a post from: Rounite