Every year around January 7 my extended family and I, all 20 of us, get together for an evening to celebrate our Ukrainian Christmas.The table is filled with many dishes and candles are burning in delight. All of us gather around the large dining table and enjoy each other's company. It is the one day we can all get together and celebrate.
Ribbon Candy
Wheat
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The foods we have are borscht, which is a warm beet soup, kutia: wheat simmered with honey and poppy seeds, pudaha, perogies, cabbage rolls and pueshket, which consists of buns and creamy dill sauce, and many versions of fish: due to it being Christmas Eve, so we do not have any meat.
When my great Baba was younger oranges and apples were very special as the only time she received them were on Christmas along with nuts, chocolate, and ribbon candy.
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There was no December 25 only January 7 for my Ukrainian side of the family.
This dinner has started because my great great Baba had hosted it and my great Baba wants to keep the tradition going. She told me: “All my sisters decided to continue the tradition as well onto their families. I was never taught to cook all these foods as I could only watch as my mother made all of the dinners. I had to learn to make it all myself when I went off to start my family and everything used to be made the day of the dinner because we did not have any refrigeration available and to ensure freshness. Each dinner is different because I make versions of the dinner as my mother did with her own mothers. Also, for Christmas, we would bring hay in the house and put it on or under the table, and put money in it for the children to find” (Koroscil).
We, my family and I, all attend this event because it is important to my great Baba and great Gido and we look forward to it each and every year. Moments like these create lasting memories that we cherish for years to come.
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| My Family |
Taken by Wayne Koroscil ( Gido)
Works Cited
Jamie, and Claudia. Kutia. 2012. Claudia’s Cookbook, 2012, www.claudiascookbook.com/2011/01/06/kutia/. Accessed 26 Oct. 2017.
Koroscil, Marie. Interview. By Samantha Tomlinson. 26 Oct. 2017.
Koroscil, Wayne. Family at Ukrainian Christmas. 6 Jan. 2014.
Tucker, Aimee. The Red and Green Variety Tastes like (what else?) Peppermint. New England Today Food, 2014, newengland.com/today/food/new-england-made/ribbon-candy/. Accessed 26 Oct. 2017.
Samantha, I've been in a lot of basement rooms that look exactly like your picture! All of my Ukrainian relatives in Thunder Bay left large spaces open in their basements for occasions such as this. Given that my Baba had 17 brothers and sisters, you can imagine the crowd. The food we ate was similar to yours: borscht, perogies, fish (from Lake Superior), and cabbage rolls. For the rolls, my Baba would break from tradition and add some meat. My Baba said that she and her sisters learned to cook on the farm: while their brothers were in the field, the girls would be in the kitchen making food with what was being harvested. Until she moved into assisted living, my Baba continued to spend her days in the kitchen. While I certainly don't cook in the way she used to, I believe in the importance of making an effort to cook using real ingredients each day. Love is shown in the time you spend putting a meal together, and I believe that is what will stay with you, long after the last bite is done. Of all of the foods you listed, which is your favourite?
ReplyDeleteI found your tradition very interesting. It reminded me of my family eating thanksgiving together; spending time together. All the types of unique foods you talked about sounded tasty and interesting; I would like to know more about how they are made. My family is nowhere as large as yours; I think it is nice that your whole family does it because it is important to your great Baba, and great Gido. Your pictures really captured the atmosphere of your family tradition: having everyone sitting so close together to one table, shows how close your family is. Do you find it difficult spending family time with so many people? If so why?
ReplyDeleteUkrainian Christmas looks like so much fun! All the food looks absolutely delicious, but I especially love that ribbon candy. The colourful candy strands brings back my memories of eating fruit-roll-ups in primary school, and sharing them with my friends. Is the ribbon candy a gummy too, or is it a harder candy? Also your the size of family is huge! How do you all fit at one table? The largest gathering my family hosts is around Thanksgiving at my Grandparents house on my Dad’s side. My cousins and relatives all get together, eat turkey, and catch up on one another's lives. I can't say that my family quite is as large as yours, though if every one of my aunts, uncles, and cousins and their significant others showed up, we may be pretty close. I love seeing them around Christmas too, but our schedules never seem to coincide with everyone else's so the turnouts isn't as many as Thanksgiving. Does your family still do Christmas on December 25 too? I mean, what's better than Christmas once a year? Celebrating it twice!
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