Bright Sunday of Christ has always been considered not only the main holiday of Christians, but also one of the most beloved.

This holiday has always been celebrated on a special scale. And this applied to both the preparation and preparation of treats intended for the Easter table.

Easter feast traditions

The tradition of setting rich and varied tables for Easter has quite deep historical roots.

Preparations for the great celebration began on Maundy Thursday, when skillful housewives set the dough for Easter cakes, laid the foundations for Easter eggs, began painting Easter eggs and painted unique Easter eggs.

Young wheat or sheep were grown especially for the holiday. Painted Easter eggs were laid out on this delicate greenery.

In wealthy homes, at least 48 dishes were served at the festive table.

This tradition is due to the fact that the name lasted 48 days.

Traditionally, pancakes and babas were served on the Easter table, as well as original Easter gingerbread cookies, which were baked for the holiday in the form of hares, cockerels or doves.

Baked meat was a must at the table.

Usually these were baked chickens or pork hams, young lamb or veal.

Hot dishes were not served on the table, because the Easter table had been set for a long time and was ready to receive guests for a whole week.

For Orthodox Christians, the Easter holidays began with the end of Easter itself, which lasted a whole 7 weeks. The festive feast began with breaking the fast, which was especially pleasant after a long abstinence from fast food.

For breaking the fast, those products that were blessed during the Easter service were displayed. The first foods to be eaten were, of course, eggs and a piece of Easter cake.

During long periods of fasting, the consumption of any animal products was prohibited.

Therefore, housewives tried to prepare as many hearty dishes of meat, fish, as well as complex salads and baked goods for the festive table.

Modern housewives, regardless of whether the family observed fasting, try to keep up with their great-grandmothers and prepare a wide variety of dishes for the Easter table.

These will be your favorite Easter cakes, Easter cottage cheese, as well as painted eggs, which will take center stage on the festive table, served in accordance with the Easter theme.

In addition, housewives are sure to select interesting recipes for preparing new dishes, which they use to complement their most successful culinary masterpieces.

Meat Easter dishes and snacks

Hearty Easter salad

It’s hard to call such a dish a salad. This is, in fact, a complete hearty meat snack. But just right for the Easter table. Adjust the amount of ingredients yourself, depending on the number of guests.

Ingredients:

• smoked lard;
• homemade sausage;
• boiled pork;
• boiled eggs;
• soft cottage cheese;
• horseradish, grated with beets;
• lettuce leaves;
• dill greens.

Cut all meat ingredients in the form of sausage, lard and boiled pork into beautiful, neat strips.

Prepare the dressing sauce. To do this, mix a couple of tablespoons of horseradish with soft cottage cheese, finely chopped dill and ground egg yolks, of which you will need about three or four pieces.

Mix all meat ingredients with sauce in a separate bowl.

Boiled tongue, chicken breast, and other types of meat can be used as meat components for this salad.

Prepare the lettuce leaves by washing them, drying them and tearing them with your hands. Place torn lettuce leaves and meat mixture in a salad bowl.

Decorate the top of the salad with egg whites, which must be cut into strips.

Of course, after a long period of abstinence, you want to enjoy various hearty delicacies.

But indulging in such gluttony is not only prohibited by the church, but also not recommended by doctors.

Diversify your Easter table. These do not have to be those that the family has been eating for the last seven weeks.

The same eggs added to a light vegetable salad make the dish play with new colors.

Ingredients

• radishes – 200 gr.;
• tomatoes – 600 gr.;
• chicken breast – 1 pc.;
• green onions;
• boiled eggs – 5 pcs.;
• sour cream;
• horseradish;
• soy sauce;
• salt and pepper.

Prepare a salad dressing from sour cream, soy sauce and horseradish. You will need 1 tablespoon of each component.

Cut the boiled eggs into discs, and the radishes, tomatoes and chicken breast into cubes. Mix all ingredients except eggs.

Line the salad bowl with lettuce leaves, on top of which place the prepared salad mixture. Place eggs on top and sprinkle with chopped green onions.

You can use fresh cucumbers or Chinese cabbage as additional ingredients for this salad.

Try to prepare as many interesting and varied dishes as possible for the Easter table.

After all, on this day the festive celebration lasts more than a couple of hours, and the rich table is not cleared until the evening.

The traditions of celebrating Easter have been formed over the centuries; they are distinguished by their beauty, solemnity and hidden meaning.

Oksana Frolova

“Long before the adoption of Christianity in Rus', the Slavs celebrated a spring holiday every year, dedicated to the goddess Zora, who awakens nature from winter sleep. The men lit fires, and the women decorated themselves with herbs and flowers, and then walked around the village, calling on the land to be fertile. On this day, they poured water on each other, danced in circles, jumped over fires and set a rich table. In ancient Greece, the goddess of agriculture Demeter was glorified in the spring, the Egyptians prayed to the god of rebirth Osiris, and the Romans prayed to the goddess Ceres. The ancient Celts and Germans worshiped Ostara, the goddess of the dawn and renewal of nature, offering her colored eggs and wheat bread. Some historians argue that Easter symbolism was born from the cult of worship of Ostara, although our Slavic ancestors presented painted eggs to Perun and considered the egg the embryo of the entire universe.”

There are also legends that once upon a time Rus' was attacked by the evil demons of Koshchei, who caused fire rain and many cataclysms. After the victory over them, the Slavs established the holiday of Paschet - “The Path of Deliverance.” They painted eggs with ocher in memory of the fire showers and smashed their shells against each other, remembering the battle with demons. The winner was the one whose egg remained intact.

How to prepare for Easter

Because the eve of the great holiday is Lent, which, together with Holy Week, lasts 48 days. Among the customs and traditions of Easter, fasting, according to many church parishioners, is the most difficult. During this period, believers limit themselves to food and entertainment, attend church services, read the Gospel and spend a lot of time in prayer and spiritual reflection. In apostolic times, Christians fasted for three days before Easter, but later the church introduced new rules so that believers would remember how Jesus fasted in the desert for 40 days.

The strictest week of Lent is Holy Week, the last week before Easter. During this week, many Christians attend church services every day, fasting becomes even stricter, and on Friday, the day of Christ’s crucifixion, one cannot eat until the end of the evening service. Thursday of Holy Week is called clean because on this day believers remember how Jesus washed the disciples’ feet. In Rus', Christians performed ablutions on Maundy Thursday before sunrise. Our ancestors believed in the magical power of Thursday water, believing that it eliminates sins and cleanses the soul. To this day, one of the surviving folk traditions of Easter in Russia is general cleaning on Maundy Thursday. There was a belief that if you clean the house on this day, you can find long-lost and needed things.

Preparing the Easter table

During Holy Week, bake Easter cakes and prepare cottage cheese Easter. According to church tradition, it is better to do this on Saturday, but in practice it is impossible to do everything in a day, so preparation for the Bright Resurrection of Christ begins on Holy Monday. However, on Good Friday it is still recommended to refrain from household chores, because on this day Jesus was crucified.

Father Roman

Priest

“The main Easter dish can be considered Easter cake, which is the first food for breaking the fast. It is interesting that we eat bread every day, and only once a year does it become a sacred symbol. We consider the Easter cake to be a “relative” of the bread that is placed on the lectern in the church on the first day of Bright Week. But for this, Easter cake, like colored eggs, must be blessed in church during Saturday service. I am often asked how to celebrate Easter correctly. It is necessary not only to pay attention to the festive table, but also to attend all the services of Easter Week, remembering the life of Christ, pray a lot and delve into the reading of the Holy Scriptures. This is the correct celebration of Easter.”

Easter cake differs from traditional bread in that it is baked from rich dough and decorated with icing. In Rus', during Lent, housewives preserved eggs and dairy products in every possible way, and then used them for Easter baking. In ancient cookbooks you can find recipes where there are 100 eggs per 2 kg of flour. It’s hard to believe, but in fact there were a lot of Easter cakes, and a large family ate them during Bright Week.

In the old days, Easter baking was approached very responsibly. It was believed that the dough for Easter cake was very delicate, so the dishes with the dough were covered with pillows; moreover, it was forbidden to talk or walk in the room in heavy shoes - the delicate dough could not stand even the slightest noise. To prevent the baked goods from settling, the temperature in the room was maintained as in a room for newborns, and the cake cooled only on a down pillow.

An obligatory dish on the Easter table has always been cottage cheese Easter, which is prepared from pureed high-fat cottage cheese, butter, eggs, cream, powdered sugar, sour cream, dried fruits, candied fruits, chocolate and nuts. Easter is made in the form of a tetrahedral pyramid, which is the personification of Golgotha, and is decorated with images of the cross and Easter symbols.

Why do we color eggs?

There are many versions of where the tradition of dyeing eggs for Easter came from, except for the customs of the ancient Slavs, who offered red eggs (krashenki) to the gods, asking them for the fertility of the earth and a generous harvest.

One of the legends is associated with Mary Magdalene, who brought a chicken egg to Emperor Tiberius with the news of the resurrection of Christ. The emperor doubted the veracity of her words and said that he would believe only if the egg turned red right now. The egg suddenly turned red, and since then eggs have been painted red at Easter. According to another version, the red egg symbolizes the blood of the crucified Christ, and the patterns on it are the tears of the Virgin Mary. The third version tells that as a child, baby Jesus loved to play with eggs and Mary painted them to make his toys more colorful.

When Jesus was sentenced to death, Our Lady came to Pontius Pilate asking for mercy and brought him a whole tray of painted eggs. After the emperor refused, her hands trembled, the tray fell to the ground, and the eggs scattered all over the world.

In Rus', the first painted egg was considered a powerful amulet, and it was kept for a year. It was believed that such an egg could drive evil spirits out of the house, protect livestock from disease, protect the family from strife and put out fires. The girls dipped their dyes into the water and washed themselves, believing that the water would preserve beauty and prolong youth. Easter egg shells were sprinkled on the fields for a good harvest. In Rus', eggs were colored with onion skins, but now we have such a large selection of food colors and Easter decor that an egg can be turned into a work of art. Modern housewives paint eggs in different shades, decorating them with painting, stickers, threads, beads and decoupage.

Folk signs and traditions of Easter

On Saturday evening the whole family went to the church for the All-Night Vigil service, which began with a procession of the cross around the church and ended in the morning. The children, of course, were taken away earlier, but the most persistent parishioners remained until the end of the service. In the morning, they set the festive table, decorated it with flowers specially grown for Easter, and broke their fast. This is how Easter is now celebrated in Russia and other countries, although you can buy flowers rather than grow them yourself. Wealthy people always had 48 dishes on their table on this day in memory of each day of Lent.

In the old days, before the Easter meal, they first honored their ancestors - they placed a pot of honey in front of the icons, offered a prayer, took eggs in their hands and with the words “Christ is Risen! Truly risen!” hit them against each other.

One of the most popular Easter pastimes was rolling colored eggs down a slide, and for this, wooden toy slides were made especially for the holiday for children. Whose egg rolls the farthest is considered the winner. They also played “egg hunt” - adults hid eggs in the house and on the street, and children looked for them; whoever found the egg took it for himself. Easter eggs were distributed to the poor, and one egg was always left in the church - it was believed that this would give the family prosperity and a good life. On Easter, girls wove wreaths of flowers, which were then kept in the house for a whole year as a talisman. There was also a custom on the eve of Easter and throughout the Easter week to perform many good deeds and pious deeds for the forgiveness of especially serious sins and the salvation of the soul. They tried not to eat the whole Kulich - pieces were cut off from it, dried, and then stored as a medicine, which was used throughout the year to treat various diseases.

The power of Easter traditions is so great that even during the Great Patriotic War, believers celebrated Easter by bringing to church for blessing those crumbs of black bread that they received with ration cards. In Soviet times, confectioners managed to sell Easter cakes in stores with the veiled name “Spring Cupcake.” In the first years of Soviet power, on Easter night, night discos and film screenings of foreign films were organized for young people to compete with the All-Night Vigil service. Representatives of the KGB were on duty at the churches on Easter night, so people who were afraid of being exposed did not go to church. In those days, the most popular day was Radonitsa - the day of remembrance of the dead, which falls on the 9th day after Christ's Resurrection - for many it replaced Easter. People went to cemeteries with eggs and “Spring” cupcakes, because the graves of the dead did not pose a danger to the Soviet regime.

For many, the Easter table is associated with colored eggs, Easter cake and Easter cottage cheese. But why limit yourself to only them. In this article you will find a selection of recipes for traditional dishes for this bright holiday.

Every housewife on the Bright Resurrection of Christ tries to decorate her table with a variety of dishes that will look organic on this holiday. Below are Easter dishes with photos that everyone can prepare. After all, there is nothing complicated about them.

1. Knead the dough from 300 g of flour, 1.5 teaspoons of baking powder, 120 g of brown sugar, salt and butter cut into pieces (80 g). Mix the ingredients and add 3 yolks and 2 tbsp. spoons of water. Refrigerate the finished dough for an hour
2. Prepare the custard. To do this, grind 7 yolks with vanilla sugar (3 tablespoons) and flour (130 g). Boil 250 ml of milk and pour into the future cream. Stir, cool and mix with ricotta (600 g). Italian cheese can be replaced with cottage cheese
3. Grate the zest from two oranges, cut out the insides and add them to the ricotta along with the candied fruits.
4. Two-thirds of the dough is rolled out into a circle with a diameter of 34-37 cm. The dough is laid out in a 24-27 cm mold. The mold must first be coated with oil. A mass of ricotta is placed on top. The edges of the dough are folded over the filling
5. From the remaining dough you need to make strips 1.5 cm wide. They need to be placed crosswise on the top of the pie. Grease with butter and bake at 180 degrees for 35-40 minutes. Then cover with foil and bake for another 15-20 minutes.
6. While the cake is cooling, you need to whip cold cream (300 ml) into a foam, gradually adding powdered sugar (1 tablespoon). This pie is served at room temperature. Cold cream is placed on top

Kalitsuniya Greek pies for Easter

• Even those who do not consider themselves believers paint eggs for Easter. Multi-colored eggs are one of the main symbols of this holiday.
• But you can paint them in different ways. You can use natural or artificial dyes. Apply plant leaves (dill, parsley, etc.) during coloring.
• But, if you want to really surprise your guests, you can use tape when coloring Easter eggs. You can cut out various shapes from it, stick it on eggs and dip them in dye. After painting, the tape can be peeled off. Original Easter eggs are ready

Meat dishes for Easter

The Easter table is rich in meat dishes. Since ancient times, boiled pork, ham, stuffed pig, baked veal, and wild duck stewed in sour cream have been served on this bright holiday. Some of these dishes are still popular today.

Meat for Easter: egg roll

Pass beef (500 g) and pork (500 g) through a meat grinder. Add one egg to the minced meat, soaked in water and squeezed out rye bread (100 g).

1. Finely chop the onion (1-2 pieces) and add to the minced meat. Ground black pepper and salt also need to be added to the minced meat. Mix everything thoroughly
2. Cover the baking dish with foil, grease it with vegetable oil and lay out some of the minced meat. Place four boiled and peeled eggs in the center of the roll and cover them with the rest of the minced meat. We ram
3. Bake the roll in the oven preheated to 180 degrees for 30 minutes.

Jellied meat is also a traditional Easter dish. In addition to its original taste, this dish is useful for people with joint problems.

1. Pork legs (4 pcs.) need to be scalded with boiling water and cleaned. Large ones need to be cut. Place them in a saucepan and fill with cold water. Cook over low heat for 4 hours, periodically skimming off the foam.
2. After two hours of cooking the pork legs, put the deveined and chopped beef (500 g) into the pan.
3. We clean half the chicken and cut it into pieces. We clean the chicken stomachs (500 g) from films. Cut celery (1/2 root) and carrots (3 pieces) into slices. Cut the onion in half
4. Place the chicken, gizzards and vegetables in a pan with the future jellied meat an hour and a half after adding the beef. Removing foam
5. After 40 minutes, strain the broth. Separate the meat from the bones and cut into pieces of optimal shape. Put them in a saucepan, salt and add garlic, pepper (5-6 peas) and bay leaf. Add broth and bring to a boil
6. Remove from heat, cool slightly and pour the jellied meat into molds. When the dish has cooled to room temperature, put it in the refrigerator

Baked pork is another dish that will be on the table for Easter. To prepare it you will need ham, salt, pepper and garlic.

1. First, salt the ham at the rate of 20 g of salt per kilogram of meat. The ham should remain in the salt for about a day. Then you need to cut the skin with a sharp knife, rub the meat with pepper and stuff the ham with garlic. There should be one clove of garlic per kilogram of meat.
2. Preheat the oven, place the ham on a baking sheet and pour half a glass of water. When the top of the ham is browned, turn it over and cook until done.
3. In order to prevent the top crust from drying out, you need to constantly pour the released juice onto it.

Chicken for Easter

Chicken is also a frequent guest on the Easter table. It can be prepared according to this “monastic” recipe.

1. Fillet (1 kg) cut into several parts and lightly beat
2. Chop shelled and roasted walnuts (2 cups), cashews (1 cup) and hazelnuts (1 cup)
3. We prepare three types of batter. Pour a tablespoon of flour into one bowl. In the second, mix eggs (4 pcs), flour (1 tbsp), salt, pepper and sugar. Pour chopped nuts into the third
4. Before frying, chicken fillet steaks need to be rolled in each of three batters on both sides. It is better to use olive oil for frying.

Fish for Easter

Fish is not a very frequent guest on the Easter table. But, if you like to pamper yourself with fish dishes, then try baked mackerel in tomato sauce.

1. Gut the mackerel (4 small fish) and wash thoroughly. We remove the fins and make four deep oblique cuts on each side. We put 2-3 small sprigs of dill in each. Place the fish in the refrigerator
2. Chop onion (1 piece) and garlic (1 clove). Pour vegetable oil (2 tablespoons) into a small frying pan and fry the onion and garlic. Canned tomatoes (200 g) need to be mashed with a fork, transferred to a frying pan and cooked for 15 minutes
3. Pour red wine vinegar (2 tablespoons) into another frying pan, add sugar (1 tablespoon) and simmer over low heat until the volume is reduced by half. Pour vinegar into tomatoes. Mix and pass through a sieve. To fully prepare the sauce, you need to pour vegetable oil into it (100 g - 120 g)
4. Finely chop the dill and green onions. Add them to the sauce. Salt, pepper and mix
5. The mackerel should be greased with vegetable oil, salt and pepper. Line a baking tray with baking paper and place the fish on it. Preheat the oven to 190 degrees. Bake the mackerel for about 15 minutes. During cooking, the fish will need to be turned once to ensure even baking.

Serve the fish hot with tomato sauce.

Salad Easter

Can you imagine a holiday table without salads? For Easter you can prepare this interesting and, most importantly, delicious salad with boiled tongue.

1. Cut the cabbage (400 g) into thin strips. We knead with our hands. Cut the boiled tongue into strips (1 piece). Drain the brine from pickled cucumbers (100 g) and cut them into strips
2. Mix cabbage, tongue, cucumbers and chopped green onions (10 g). If you wish, you can add other greens. Season the salad with olive oil (50 ml). Salt, pepper and mix
3. Top the salad with cashew nuts and herbs.

Cakes for Easter photo

Homemade wine for Easter

Homemade wine has traditionally been considered the main drink on the Easter table. Today, stronger alcoholic drinks are in use. But, drinking such drinks is fraught with health risks. A couple of glasses of homemade wine on Easter is not only not frowned upon, but, on the contrary, can help the body better process food after fasting.

An important factor for success in home winemaking is harvesting the grapes at a time when they have reached full ripeness. At this time, the berries contain the maximum amount of sugar. What is decisive during the fermentation process?

1. After harvesting the grapes, the berries need to be separated from the bunch and placed in a container. If you have collected a lot of grapes, then 60-liter stainless steel tanks are suitable for this purpose. Before placing the grapes in containers, the berries must be crushed by hand. Containers with grapes should be placed in a room with a temperature of 10 -25 degrees
2. While the grapes are fermenting, they need to be stirred periodically.
3. When sediment appears, the wine needs to be strained. For this purpose, you can use gauze or nylon stocking. You need to add sugar to the purified liquid. For one liter of wine you need one cup of sugar. Stir the wine until the sugar dissolves
4. We wait until the wine ferments and pour it into three-liter jars. Leave 2 cm from the neck to the level of the wine. Roll up the jars with lids and make a hole in the middle. We insert a medical hose into the hole. It should be above the wine. Coat the hole with the hose with plasticine to seal it. We insert the opposite end of the hose into a jar of water, making a water seal
5. During fermentation, sediment forms in the wine. It needs to be removed periodically (pour the wine into other jars, leaving sediment) and repeat everything all over again.
6. Fermentation times depend on various factors and can vary greatly. Taste the wine periodically, add sugar (if required) and as soon as you like the drink, close the jar with a nylon lid and leave for storage.

Decorating Easter dishes

Housewives use their own tricks to decorate their table and delicious dishes for Easter. Below in the video you can watch some of them and take note.

Video: Decorating Easter dishes

Setting the Easter table and decorating dishes

• I can write for a very long time about setting and decorating the Easter table. Every housewife has many ideas in her head about how to beautifully serve dishes prepared for this holiday.
• During the celebration of the Holy Resurrection of Christ, symbols of Easter should be placed on the table: Easter cakes, eggs and other dishes
• And also what will indicate the awakening of nature from winter sleep: flowers, greenery, decorative bird’s nests
• A toy figurine of the Easter bunny will also be appropriate during the holiday feast
• The main material of the Easter table is natural wood.
• If your table is made of this material, then for Easter you can do without a tablecloth altogether.
• Natural wood, flowers and greenery will make your table unforgettable
• Place a vase of flowers in the center of the table, and a colored egg on a plate for each guest. And if you write the guest's name on the eggs, they can be used as seating cards
• Traditional Easter cakes for this holiday can be decorated not only with icing, but also with cake mastic
• You can choose the color of the mastic so that the cake fits organically into the overall design of the table. You can not only cover Easter cake with mastic, but also make flowers out of it to decorate this pastry.
• You can make various figures from mastic and decorate Easter with them. The main thing here is to have imagination. And sculpting figures from this material is as easy as making it from plasticine

Happy holiday to you!

Video: DIY Easter decoration. Egg made from thread and glue

Many housewives are familiar with the exhausting bustle. We are torn between a million important household chores and church services, often making sad choices in favor of the former.

Pre-holiday chores drag on and are simply exhausting, because at the very last moment you need to clean the house, buy everything you need, bake Easter cakes, paint eggs, and even prepare a variety of dishes for the family holiday meal.

The Russian Easter table was traditionally rich and varied. In wealthy families, up to 40 dishes were served - according to the number of days of Lent.

Easter was celebrated for a long time: people could come to visit at any time, and the greatest shame for the hostess was a poorly set table.

Meat dishes were obligatory - baked and fried hams, veal, stuffed turkey, goose, pig, all kinds of jellied and jellied meats, boiled pork, pates, rolls, snacks from vegetables, mushrooms, porridges (with meat and sweet), and game.

Particular attention was paid to the sweet table. In addition to the obligatory Easter cakes and curd paskas, Easter buns and honey gingerbread cookies in the shape of birds and animals were baked.

The image of a lamb in baked goods also had a symbolic character - it was a symbol reminiscent of the sacrificial death of Christ. Pies, mazurkas, and tender “downy” baba were prepared, jelly and sbitni were cooked, and multi-layer jellies were made from juices and jam.

The Easter table has no restrictions on the use of products, but fish is usually not present on it. Just like the funeral table of forty days, the Easter table is set for the whole day; everyone who enters the house has the right to come up and taste the food, even without the invitation of the owners.

Apparently, the duration of the feast determines another rule for the Easter table - there are usually no hot dishes on it, which allows the hostess not to serve the guests, but to rejoice and celebrate the bright day with them.

Easter is celebrated all week, and a good housewife should have the table set all week, so food was prepared ahead of time and a lot.

For many centuries, the most important holiday in the spring is Easter itself. As a rule, this holiday is celebrated by the entire Orthodox world. It is worth paying attention to the fact that this holiday has its own special meaning. It lies in the fact that it is during this period that everything in nature is renewed and reborn. With the advent of this holiday, Lent also ends. Throughout its entire duration, the Orthodox people strictly adhered to fasting. On Easter Eve, festive dishes appeared on every table. It is worth noting that each of them had its own special meaning. All the treats that are placed on the table on the holiday are a symbol of the victory of eternal life directly over death.

Preparation for the holiday

The predecessor to such a holiday as Easter is the fast week. Throughout its entire length, it is prohibited to consume meat, dairy, and fish foods. In addition, vegetable oil is not used. But, despite this, a large number of women begin to prepare for the celebration directly in the middle of the week. Directly at this time, everything that is required for the festive table and Easter dishes is purchased. This is directly flour, cottage cheese, eggs, meat and other products. It is worth paying attention to the fact that before the festive Sunday, all dishes must be prepared and solemnly lit in the church. And only with the arrival of morning can you begin to break your fast. It will mark the end of Lent and the bright holiday of Easter.

Please note that creating a festive table must be approached very responsibly. After all, the Easter table should be decorated according to the holiday. As a table decoration, you can make your own artificial flowers that will have bright colors. For many years, housewives decorated Easter cakes and Easter eggs with these flowers. As a rule, every housewife can make flowers of this type from colored paper or small remnants of fabric. Please note that children can also directly participate in the preparation of such decoration. You can always find a deal for them. For example, children will do a great job cutting out an openwork napkin. Subsequently, you can put such napkins on the festive table.

As a rule, the most beautiful dishes and a snow-white tablecloth were prepared in advance for Easter. The very first flowers were also placed on the table on this day. The entire festive table setting should have a light mood.

Easter table dishes

The menu of this bright holiday cannot do without the main components. This is Easter cake itself, colored eggs and cheese Easter. This holiday cannot do without them. It is worth paying attention to the fact that there must be small animal figurines on the festive table. There must be a small figurine of the Easter lamb on the table. As a rule, this figure is carved directly from butter and then decorated with colored glaze. It is the lamb that is a symbol of Jesus’ sacrifice. After all, he gave his life in the name of saving the lives of all people.

In addition, a variety of meat dishes can be placed on the festive table. Please note that the honorable first place among all prepared dishes is the directly baked ham. Very often, housewives include various turkey and veal dishes on the menu. Dishes made from fried lamb and ham are also perfect for the holiday table. In addition, pay attention to the fact that there should be a large number of salads on the table. But there should be no fish dishes on the table on this special day.

In ancient times, as a rule, at least forty dishes were placed on the table. This number corresponds to the number of days during which Lent lasted. As a rule, such a number of dishes is not a mandatory requirement for the holiday table. It is very important that on the table there are some symbols of this celebration, which were consecrated in the church. It is worth noting that there should be a large number of jelly and compotes on the table. Children consume such drinks with great pleasure.

The main attribute of the festive table

The peak of the culinary art of housewives on this holiday is the Easter cake itself. It is placed in the center of the festive table. It is impossible to even imagine the Easter table without Easter cake. This Easter cake is a symbol of the presence of God in our world. It is also a symbol of the fact that God loves and cares for every person. It is worth noting that Easter cake remains fresh throughout the week.

As a rule, holiday cake is very sweet and tall. The housewife covers it with sugar glaze and sprinkles it with colored crumbs or finely chopped candied fruits. It should be noted that on the top of each holiday cake there should be the capital letters XB. This Easter cake must be consecrated in the church. Subsequently, all guests and acquaintances are treated to pieces of this cake.

First of all, you should pay attention to the fact that any housewife takes great care of the dough that is prepared for the Easter cake. In order for baked Easter cakes to have an amazing taste, you will need to follow certain rules. You will need to start preparing the dough in a great mood. The thing is that the dough can perfectly sense your mood. If you are not in the mood, the dough may simply not rise. The first thing you need to prepare is the base for the cake. This is the dough itself. Only fresh yeast is used for it. To make the cake fluffy, the prepared flour must be sifted twice. For Easter cake, only the highest grade flour is used. The secret to fluffy dough is quite simple. When sifting is carried out, the flour is saturated with oxygen, which makes the cake very fluffy.

It is worth paying attention to the fact that a large number of housewives cannot ensure that the cake is as loose as possible. To make the cake loose, it is necessary to fill the existing molds only halfway. As soon as the cake is baked, it needs to be lightly sprinkled with water and covered with a towel. As a rule, at the request of the housewife, nuts, candied fruits, and marshmallows are added to the dough.

Easter eggs

An equally important decoration of the festive table are painted eggs or, as they are also called, Easter eggs. With their help, the table looks as solemn as possible. For many centuries there has been one tradition that has been passed on from generation to generation. This is a direct exchange of eggs. As a rule, eggs for the holiday table must be blessed during the liturgy on the church grounds. After this, the pysanky are distributed to everyone they know. Previously they were painted red. This color was a symbol of the triumph of the Christian faith. To ensure that the color of eggs is as rich as possible, many women use onion peels when dyeing them. Currently, stores have a very large number of food colors that are intended for coloring eggs for this big holiday.

It is worth noting that Easter eggs were also very often hand-painted. These are truly true masterpieces of art. All the patterns that were applied to them corresponded to the festive vestments of church ministers. Currently, painting Easter eggs is a very interesting process. This is exactly what children love to participate in. On a ceremonial table, painted eggs take pride of place in the center of the table in close proximity to the Easter cake. Don’t forget about Cahors, which should be on the ceremonial table on this holiday. This wine symbolizes the blood of Christ.

Easter is the brightest holiday. This celebration cannot leave a single person on earth indifferent. Every housewife tries to prepare an extraordinary and beautiful table for this holiday. Our people have carried the traditions associated with this holiday through the centuries. At all times, this Easter holiday has been celebrated all over the world. Please note that traditions do not recommend visiting on the first day of Easter.