Hungarian Easter: The Saturday Dinner And Symbols

The today known Easter celebrated since the III. century, in Hungary we celebrate since the XI. century, punctually since 1092, about 30 years after the death of our first king Stephen I. 

Although the Church and the religious people gave Christian meanings to almost every Easter symbols, most of them came from ancient pagan cultures anyway, because the celebration of the beginning of Spring [celebrating Spring equinox] is more ancient than Christianity. The following Sunday after the first full moon after Spring equinox was the celebration of Ostara, goddess of the Spring in the ancient German culture. The name 'Easter' also came from the German word 'Ostern' after the Goddess Ostara/Ostra.

She was the goddess of fertility, always imaged with Spring flowers, tendrils, eggs in her hand, bunnies at her feet, birds around her and floral tribute on her head. She symbolized the revival of nature and men.

We call this holiday Húsvét. The word 'húsvét' is a mosaic-word and has liturgical meaning only.
In the Hungarian folklore too the main symbols are the egg and the bunnies. Beside these there are baby chicks and the barka/gosling. We still decorate our Easter table with gosling and painted eggs, well leastwise the tradition keepers.

The egg 

The most ancient symbol of fertility. It symbolizes the mother womb or the universe, the mystery of lifeless become living. The main symbol of Easter. Long tradition is to paint and decorate eggs. The most popular is the red egg. The red as color is also a magical symbol. They believed the red is some protecting color. Someones believed it symbolizes Christ's blood or like the red egg Christ's heart [in cubist form... Hahaha Sorry.].

The egg painting as tradition remained in Eastern-Europe firstly. It's a very common tradition still today. I painted eggs too when I was a kid. I loved it. I don't make nowadays because we have some folk eggs for the occasion to decorate with. We bought them in Tihany, where old ladies in folk dresses make the most beautiful ones.

In Hungary every ethnical group has its own egg decoration technic and pattern.
The most popular one is drawing the pattern with candle wax on the egg, then paint the egg with color you want and the wax drawing just appear. This technic is called tojásírás/eggwriting [above, the last green one]. The fully decorated egg called hímestojás [above, the first one for example]. 

In the old times they used various vegetables or herbs to get paint. They cooked the herbs or vegetables till they let out all their colors, then cooked the egg in that painted water till the egg became the current colored:
Beetroot - Reddish purple
Red onion-skin - Purple
Onion-skin – Reddish brown
Coffee bean – Deep brown
Black tea – Deep brown
Red cabbage – Blue
Turmeric – Yellow
Orange and lemon – Light yellow
Rosehip – Pink
Spinach – Green
Ground paprika – Orange

After Winter the first eggs meant the coming of Spring, so probably that was the reason to decorate eggs out of happyness.
They also used eggs to perdict the future. They poured an egg in a glass full of water on Good Friday and the figure shown the next year's crops. [I can't imagine how they could see something else than a strange surreal blob in a water…] Girls put the egg-shells onto the doorstep to dream that night what will be their future husbands' occupation [another mystery…].

Rabbits 

The bunny wo brings painted eggs is a more complicated symbol and absolute has nothing to do with Christianity. Bunnies always symbolized fertility. Since they are nocturnal animals, they often refer them with the moon, which is also the symbol of fertility, not to mention the strange rabbit figure on the surface of the moon.
The connection between the rabbit and the egg is origined from the German mythology. Goddess Ostara has a magical bird once, who layed colored eggs. One day the goddess out of anger/or in other stories to amuse the children she turned the bird into rabbit... So the big secret revealed!

The barka/gosling [but not that odd Ryan guy…]
It has many names. Some cultures call it kitty-cat because of the fluffy round crops. We call it leányfűz/maiden-willows or pálmafűz/palm-willows or simply gosling-tree.
In the old times people ascribed to the gosling healing power. If they spread that into the family fireplace they believed that would protect the house from troubles and grief. Or they used to eat it as medicine against sore throat.

In Christianity it connects to Palm Sunday [When Jesus arrived into Jerusalem the people greeted him with palm-branches.]. But instead of palm [due to we haven't any here.. Haha], Hungarians replaced it with gosling as the symbol of the first crops of the early Spring.

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As I wrote about the traditional Hungarian Christmas dinner table, our Easter dinner table is the same, we have particular dishes to this occasion as well.
The two most basic foods are the Húsvéti sonka/Easter ham, which is a special marinated, smoked whole pork leg and the Fonott kalács/Twisted bun, which is a kind of sweet bread. Twisted bun is very common, so you can buy it through the year. I love it either with marmalade or as sandwich with butter and salami...
The beliefs of Easter ham are rather magical than sacralic, but despite this the most significant Easter food for a very long time. Always was the main dish among agricultural people along the centuries...

The Eastern basket
This used to be a popular tradition in the countyside.
They put every symbolic Easter foods tastily in a big basket and after the Easter mass the priest blessed it. Then the family went home and ate the blessed Easter meal together. You can see some beautiful hand-embroidered tablecloths in the Ethnographic Museum at Budapest. They used those tablecloths to cover the baskets. 

The content of the baskets were variant by ethnical regions and groups, but the ham, egg and twisted bun were usually there.
It was a habit to hang the blessed ham onto a fruit tree, to bring them good crops and fruits, and they fed the hens with leftover breadcrumbs to lay much eggs.

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My dad used to buy Easter ham, but since he passed we don't buy, because we are not very into porky things [except bacon...]. I don't know how it made. But they usually eat the ham with horseradish cream/or the Hungarian version is more like some kind of chutney.
I never make Twisted bun neither, I buy it. Next to our house there is a very good bakery, they never use additives or other sh♥♥♥y things and their buns are very tasty, I wouldn't make better at home. 

Beside these usually there are boiled eggs, pogácsas and various fresh vegetables on the tables, such as radish, horseradish, yellow pepper, leek, red onion, spring onion.. etc.
Some modern Easter dishes are Stuffed egg [with sausage, boiled egg yolk and herbs or with ham and horseradish], Carrot cake, Cottage cheese cake, Bear leek and ham filled sweet bun/bread, Ham broth, Lamb pörkölt… etc.

Sadly or not we broke the tradition too.
Our Easter dinner is usually homemade duck liver pate with radish, apple, mango chutney, baguette and fresh corn salad.

Happy Easter!/Kellemes Húsvétot! ✌