| Price:
$12.97
Hardcover: 217 pages
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press (December
1990)
Language: English
ISBN: 0822936461
Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
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Book Description
The festivities of the title follow the usual Christian calendar--Easter,
Christmas, Pentecost and various saints' days. But Christianity
in the 19th-century Ukraine, the focus of Ukrainian-born Farley's
well-researched book, coexisted with a rural paganism in which ancestors
were appeased and fed at Christmas, river spirits blessed and, in
a typical grace, God appeared simply as prima inter pares : "Gracious
Lord, sun of truth, stars of beauty, moon of light, wind ferocious,
rain bountiful, weather beautiful, ancestors' fathers, we feast
with you and greet you in summer." The cuisine, likewise, derives
from an agrarian prototype shared by other Eastern Europeans and
by the Ashkenazim as well. The foods, like the traditions, are hearty:
cabbage rolls meatless or meat-filled; two kinds of borschsic ,
varying with the season; meat stuffed in casings or covered with
aspic; numerous sweet or savory breads, rolls, dumplings, fritters
and pancakes, some topped with cabbage or cheese for ordinary meals,
others containing a hefty half-pound of butter, a cup of cream and
30 large egg yolks to create a lavish Easter spread.
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