Ukrainian Easter remembered

...and Easter Egg Cheese in the High Tatras

Eggs and cream, the raw material of many of northern Europe's traditional Easter dishes, are available as soon as the hens are back into lay and cows and sheep are back in milk.

            I know, I know. Seasons are no longer an issue for those of us who shop in supermarkets and expect everything to be available all year.   The spring equinox, however, is not so easily ignored by those who depend on the land to fill the storecupboard, as was the way among the self-sufficient farming communities of Eastern Europe. Which is why the last of ham from the rafters or the brine-pot, is the traditional meat of the Easter meal, a declaration of confidence that winter's gone, the fields are warming up for the plough, and this year's harvest is on its way. 

For the Ruthenes of Ludomirova, Ukrainians marooned in the High Tatras on the Slovak-Ukrainian border in the wake of WW2, the traditions of Easter had a particular poignancy since observed in ways their fellow Ukrainians could not.

At the time of my visit in 1991 - the year Ukraine declared independence from Soviet Russia - a film-crew from Kyiv, to the surprise of the villagers, had come looking for their roots among a community that - too small to bother the state - had been left un-collectivised under the communist regime in Prague and had continued to live as they always had, as self-sufficient farmers, filling their own store-cupboards, stocking their cellars and selling the surplus in the unofficial market in Svidnik, capital of the region and a minor tourist destination as the birthplace of Andy Warhol.

Easter Week was a time when the younger members of every household who worked elsewhere came home to plant the staple starch-food, potatoes - impossible till the earth warmed up - help prepare the festive meal, teach their younger siblings how to decorate emptied-out eggshells for the Easter table, and take turns at kneading the dough for an enormous batch of babkas.

Preparations were interrupted on Good Friday for a visit to the cemetery with prettily decorated baskets packed with the last of winter stores - reassuring the ancestors that the community had survived in good health. Once this was done, the baskets were taken to accept a blessing at the church door from a Russian Orthodox priest who, being subsidised by Moscow, had the good sense to undercut than the services offered by Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics.  

Change was in the air. With two film crews in town, things were looking up.  Kyiv had been interested in filming the Easter basket in the churchyard.  The Australian outfit to which I belonged were filming an episode of The Rich Tradition, a 13-part series funded by SBS Australia, based on my first cookbook, European Peasant Cookery.    Good reason for the youth of Ludomirova to celebrate the end of Lent at midnight on Easter Saturday in the wine-cellar under the railway-arch in Svidnik.  It wasn't Studio 54, but local musical tastes ran to MC Hammer, there was new wine on tap behind the bar, and a frying vat in the yard preparing what our interpreter Katrina, trainee anthropologist from Batislava, described as Ukrainian fast-food.

“We say it is chicken kiev, but is made with last year's cheese."

 Last year's cheese, soft from the heat, came in a jacket of crisp breadcrumbs with a dipping-cup of something white and creamy flecked with dill. I dipped and took a bite. After a long month on the road with a film crew whose main preoccupation was tracking down the nearest hamburger joint, it seemed like the most delicious thing I'd ever eaten.      

On Easter Sunday, the whole family - some twenty strong, not counting babies, film crew and me - settled down at the kitchen table to a huge platter of sliced ham and hard-boiled eggs, a big slab of freshly-churned butter, bowls of pickled vegetables and relishes, babkas hot from the oven.  And finally, in pride of place, a shiny yellow egg-dumpling, firm and golden as the sun - the symbol, explained Katrina, of the triumph of light over darkness and hope for the year to come.

                                     Ukrainian Easter egg-dumpling

Use the contents of the blown eggs for this Easter treat: a solid sphere of scrambled egg and cream that looks decorative, slices up neatly, and goes well with ham and pickles.

Serves 6

1 litre full-cream milk

10 large eggs, whisked

1 teaspoon salt

Extra egg for glazing

Bring the milk to the boil, remove from the heat and whisk in the eggs. Add the salt and keep whisking until the egg is thoroughly scrambled.

         Tip it into a sieve lined with a cloth - maybe a large square of old sheet - tie the ends together and hang in a warm place to drain with a bowl underneath to catch the whey (save it for pancakes, a traditional Easter dessert).

         When the  perfectly drained and firm (overnight is best), tip it onto a baking sheet, paint with beaten egg, and slip it into the bread-baking oven - 350F/180C/Gas4 - for 10 minutes to give it a shine

Note: For the moving-pictures, check out Slovakian episode on my 12-part tv series The Rich Tradition of European Peasant Cookery filmed in situ in 1991. You find it at https://www.talkingoffood.com/watch/series-2/the-rich-tradition.html