E for Easter Basket

 

 

People in Poland prepare Easter baskets on Easter Saturday (which is part of the Polish Easter customs). Traditionally, pieces (samples) of foods that are eaten/shared by a family at breakfast on Easter Sunday are placed in a nicely decorated basket. In our family, it was some bread, butter, salt and pepper (mixed together), white sausage, a slice of ham, a hard-boiled egg, and some yeast cake. Besides it all, there was always a decorative lamb in the center of the basket.

 

On Saturday morning, the baskets are taken to church to be blessed by a priest. They were placed on a special table, usually in the church hall, and blessed after a short prayer/ceremony. 

When we were little, we enjoyed watching other people's basket contents - chocolate bunnies and eggs covered with colorful tinfoil happened. However, wooden eggs beat everything.

As for the eggs - after a dilemma: "shelled or unshelled hard-boiled egg" in the basket, we chose the latter option. It seemed more OK to us not to toss the "blessed" shell in the trash later.

Our Easter basket lamb - always the same

After the blessing of the baskets, we usually stepped into the church for a short prayer and to visit Christ's grave (church holiday exposition of course). 

When we were old enough to walk to church (at primary school), either my sister or I took the basket to church. Some kids tended to sample the basket foods on their way back from church to their home. Well, I did not do that.

Embroidery by my grandma

When back at home, the basket content went to the fridge. It came back in the basket on the Easter Sunday breakfast table.

How the breakfast started - Mom cut the food samples into pieces and each person sitting at the table took a piece of each sample. Then we ate more - more eggs, more sausage, and more of everything else.

Mazurek - my favorite Polish Easter cake