Food-Cooking

Jewish and Lithuanian Cuisine. We eat the same things!

Several years ago, Draugas News featured a story on Nida Degutienė – businesswoman, food blogger, writer, and freelance journalist, who had just published a cookbook, Taste of Israel. Nida became immersed in Litvak and Jewish cuisine when her husband diplomat Darius Degutis was appointed Lithuania’s ambassador to Israel and South …

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Femme au Foyer – 24 Days of a Baltic Christmas

Found a great blog by Latvian-American Liene Kukainis. It’s called “Femme au foyer” which translates to “woman at the hearth.” For the past several years Liene has been putting together a list of posts each December each having something to do with a Baltic Christmas. Here are the postings to-date …

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BABKA The Easter Queen

Easter Babka/Velykų Boba

By Ona Daugirdienė. The origin of the Lithuanian name for Easter is the subject of some debate. Linguists and etymologists claim that the word Velykos is borrowed from our neighbors to the east, the Belarusians, who call Easter velikij denj – literally, great (or grand) day. But žemaičiai, or Lowlanders, insist …

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Setting the table for Kūčios

Cooking Lithuanian by Ona Daugirdienė. Christmas Eve or Kūčios is a sacred day. Family members hurry home to be with their loved ones, debts are repaid, neighbors make peace, animals speak at midnight and well water turns to wine. The table for the evening meal is covered with a snowy …

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Paska and Almond Cake for the Easter Table

by Ona Daugirdas. Every family has its own food rituals for Holy Days and holidays. In my family, cast-in-stone Easter breakfast requirements were margučiai decorated by the children, my mother’s delectable cold roast duck, her light as a feather babka, and my dessert contribution—paska. When I married into the Daugirdas …

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Studying History in the Kitchen

A new free e-book explores historical connections between Austrian and Lithuanian cooking. by ALICIA RUDOKAS. On January 26 the Austrian-Lithuanian community met in the heart of Vienna to celebrate the launch of a special publication: The eCookbook,  Tasting Historical Europe – Exploring the Culinary Threads between Austria and Lithuania. One …

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A TOWERING CONFECTION : LITHUANIAN TREE CAKE

By Dainius Zalensas. If you have ever been to a Lithuanian wedding, you were most likely treated to a Tree Cake, a towering conical confection with numerous rounded branches jutting out from its trunk. It is a cake that gives a Lithuanian family celebration loft. The cake batter is made from …

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Making Koldūnai

by Alex Šilbajoris. Of all the Lithuanian recipes my parents brought to the US, koldūnai were always my favorite. Dumplings filled with beef and drowned in butter! Making them was an event bringing all of the family together in the kitchen for hours of work, laughter, and talk. Everyone had …

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Hedgehog Cake

By Josephine J. Daužvardis. Hedgehogs, those little spindly porcupine creatures, are much loved in Lithuania. Nature’s little exterminators, they were often brought into the farmhouse to control insect problems. The whimsical cake is a delight for the easter table or for a spring party. This recipe requires a bit of imagination …

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Alehouses of Vilnius

by Martin Thibault. It is a great privilege to present the readers of Lithuanian Heritage with an extract of a travelogue written by Martin Thibault, a beer connoisseur and author from Québec, Canada, who traveled to Vilnius and then throughout the Lithuanian countryside, and made some astounding discoveries regarding craft …

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