Holiday meals
I was a child when the Winter Holiday fast was observed... I was also not given meat or milk. Herring, fish and plant oil (called ‘linseed oil’) were given.
Talsipühi paastu peeti... Ma olin laps, kui peeti. Mullegi ei antud liha ega piima. Anti heeringat, kala, toiduõli.. kutsuti linaseemne õli…
It was Yuletide in Estonia. Here, in Setomaa, was the Winter Holiday and the holiday fast was six weeks long.
Mother always fasted, but she had a milk meal cooked for the tailor. Salted Baltic herring, cucumber and beetroot were eaten, also kama1. There was always something to eat. I also fasted a few times later.
1 traditional food, finely milled flour mixture of roasted barley, rye, oat and pea flour
Siin oli talsipühi. Eestimaal oli jõul. Talsipühi paast oli 6 nädalat.
Ema paastus ikka. Emal oli rätsepale keedetud piimasöök. Silku ja kurki söödi ja punast peeti, ka kama. Süüa ikka midagi oli. Ma ka paastusin veel hiljem mõne korra.
There were certain meals: sausages for Christmas, eggs for Easter, scrambled eggs for summer. When the boys went out, they were offered these meals cold, they were not warmed up. At village dance parties food was not served.
The last holiday was a rest.
Olid küll kindlast söögid: jõuluks vorstid, lihavõtteks munad, suvisteks munapuder. Poisid käisid, siis sõid neid sööke külmalt, soojaks ei tehtud. Simmani aeg süüa es pakuta
Viimane püha puhati välja.
There was hay on the floor and sausages on the table during the Winter Holidays.
Talistepühadel heinad põrandal ja vorstid laual.
Christmas without blood sausage (black pudding) was not Christmas at all: a ring of blood sausage fried in fat was to be served on the table even in the poorest sauna rooms and cottager’s families. The days leading up to Christmas were often filled with the pre-slaughter cries of pigs.
Jõulud verivorstita polnudki nagu jõulud: rõngas rasvas praetud verivorsti püüti lauale anda isegi kõige vaesemates saunataredes ja popsiperedes. Päevad enne jõulupühi olid sageli täis sigade tapaeelset hädakisa.
At Christmas time, a prayer had to be said. Then all would sing the Christmas carols. Coffee was made in the morning. Liver sausage was made, into which they added the lungs, heart and liver and the meat too. The meat jelly was made of pork and there was a fine rye bread. There was homemade white bread, and butter too. That was breakfast. Lunch was pork, potatoes, and sometimes they cooked turnips, sometimes they had cutlets and carrots, cooked in the meat broth. They went to church at eleven o'clock. Sometimes they took me with them. And in the evening they took tea or milk or.. They also ate meat jelly or liver sausage. It was always a holiday meal.
Jõulu ajal pidi palvet lugema. Sis laulsiva kõik jõululaule. Hommikus tehti kohvi. Maksavorsti tehti. Maksavorstile panti kops, süda ja maks ja liha kah. Sült tehti sialihast ja peeneleib olli. Kodusai olli, või olli kah. See olli sis hommikusöök. Lõunas olli sialiha, kartulit, vahel tehti kaale ka, vahel olli sis jälle kotletit ja porgandit, lihaleeme sees keedeti. Kirikusse minti kella üheteistkümnes. Vahel võeti minu ka kaasa. Ja õhtuks võeti teed või piima või. Sis söödi ka sülti või maksavorsti. Too olli ikka pühade söök.
In the old days, a caraway cheese sõir was made for Midsummer's Day and the Whitsuntide. Sometimes it was also made for Christmas, but mostly for Midsummer.
Sõira tehti vanasti jaanipäevaks ja suvistepühiks. Vahest tehti jõuluks ka, aga enamasti ikka jaanipäevaks.
Six days before Midsummer – St John’s Day, sometimes called just Jaan –, the people of the farm collected milk, but no one was allowed to taste it . The cream was made into butter, but the milk was made into curd. The curd was wrapped in a straw band and placed in a pan in the oven, where it was cooked until brown. This became a cheese called sõir, and was the size of a common handstone. It stood in the corner of the porch.
Jaani eve – the eve of St John's night came. The flocks were driven home in broad daylight, and the people went in good time to the sauna. Jaani hay was brought from the forest for the horses, which were not driven into the forest that night but were gathered around the hay and eating together.
When all was done, the evening meal was eaten. The farmer and his wife took the white linen out onto the grass and spread it there, and the evening's food and the sõir, which had been made six days before Jaan, were put on the linen. The mistress stayed at the meal, but the master took the oldest cow by the horns, put another white sheet over her, and pulled her three times round the linen, and all the herd were driven after her three times, and then to the barn. (Why all these customs were done I do not know.)
Then the family people sat down to eat: the master at one end of the cloth, the mistress at the other end of the cloth and the family around; the cheese was eaten last. On Jaani morning the mistress and the girls got up early before dawn and milked the cows, lest Jaan steal the milk; they put a piece of iron around each cow's neck and drove them into the woods before dawn.
Kuus pääva enne Jaan’i korjas talu rahvas piima kokku, ükski ei tohtinud seda piima maitseda. Koor tehti võiks, aga piim vaaras [curd]. Vaar mähiti õle vahru sisse ja pandi panniga ahju, kus ta pruuniks küpses, mida siis sõeruks nimetadi, mis hariliku käsikivi suurune oli ja editse nukkas [esiku nurgas] seisis.
Tuli Jaani laupäeva õhtu kätte, aeti karjad suure päevaga [when the sun was still high] kodu; rahvas käis aegsaste saunas; hobustele toodi metsast Jaani heinu, mille ümber kõik hobused sõivad, sell öösel hobusid metsa ei aetud.
Kui kõik oli ära toimetud, hakati õhtud sööma. Peremees ja perenaene viisid valge lina välja muru peale ja laotasid seda sinna maha, senna pele panti õhtu toit ja sõir, mis 6 pääva enne Jaani oli tehtud. Perenaene jäi söögi juure, aga peremees võttis kõige vanema lehma sarvi pidi kinni, pani talle valge lina üle ja vidas teda kolm kord ümber lina ja kõik kari aeti talle kolm korda järele ja siis lauta. (Miks pärast kõik neid kombeid tehti, seda ei tea mina).
Siis istus pere rahvas sööma: peremees ühe lina otsa peale, perenaene teise lina otsa peale ja pere ümber, kõige viimati söödi sõir ära.
Jaanipäeva hommiku tõusis perenaene tüdrukutega aegsasti enne päeva üles ja lüpsid lehmad ära, sest pääva varastab Jaan piima ära; panti igale lehmale rau[a] tükk kaela ja aeti enne päeva tõusu metsa.
Midsummer's food was curd pies – beestings pies1, with cumin, a little butter, sugar, and more recently raisins.
1 lit. thick milk pies.
beestings – the milk produced by the body of a woman or female animal to feed her baby in the first few days after birth. It contains a lot of protein and antibodies
Jaanipäeva söök olid korbid – ternespiimakorbid, sees köömned, natuke võid, suhkrut, viimasel ajal ka rosinaid.
Gingerbreads were baked for Christmas, semolina pies for Easter and curd pies for Whitsuntide and Midsummer. Beer was brewed for the holidays, and meat jelly and sausages were made for Christmas.
Jõuluks küpsetati piparkooke, lihavõtteks mannakorpe, suvisteks ja jaanipäevaks kohupiimakorpi. Pühadeks tehti õlut, jõuluks sülti ja vorsti.