Holiday and Special Occasion Meals
- Easter - The intricately painted Easter eggs that were prepared earlier in the week are eaten for breakfast. The diners touch their eggs together as a sort of toast (among the children, this custom sometimes devolves into a smashing contest). Dinner may be roast goose or ham and accompaniments. Dessert is often a cake made to resemble a birch log, or cookies shaped and decorated as mushrooms.
- Birthdays - The family's favorite cake is served. Traditionally in Lithuania the day of the saint after whom one was named was celebrated by the family as well as one's own birth date; for instance, a John would celebrate his name day on St. John's Day (Joninės), June 23.
- Christmas Eve (Kūčios) - Twelve vegetarian dishes are presented on a table spread with hay and lit by candles; this custom is widespread in Catholic Eastern Europe.
- Weddings - The widest possible variety of courses are served. A special bread is sometimes baked and adorned with flowers and bird-shaped decorations, or a šakotis is decorated. The ideal Lithuanian wedding lasts at least two days, so a great deal of cooking and baking goes on.
- Funerals - The bereaved family usually hosts a dinner for all the mourners.
- Informal gatherings and cocktail parties - The hosts often serve small open-face sandwiches, similar to those at a Scandinavian smorgasbord, topped with smoked fish, sausage, cucumbers, and so forth. Flavored vodkas, which may have been concocted with fruits and herbs according to the host's or hostess's own family recipe, may be served.
Read more about this topic: Lithuanian Cuisine
Famous quotes containing the words holiday, special, occasion and/or meals:
“A holiday is when you celebrate something that’s all finished up, that happened a long time ago and now there’s nothing left to celebrate but the dead.”
—Abraham Polonsky (b. 1910)
“When, in some obscure country town, the farmers come together to a special town meeting, to express their opinion on some subject which is vexing to the land, that, I think, is the true Congress, and the most respectable one that is ever assembled in the United States.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“They make a great ado nowadays about hard times; but I think that ... this general failure, both private and public, is rather occasion for rejoicing, as reminding us whom we have at the helm,—that justice is always done. If our merchants did not most of them fail, and the banks too, my faith in the old laws of the world would be staggered.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Three meals of thin gruel a day, with an onion twice a week, and half a roll on Saturdays.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)