Finland is a rather small country, with its 5.5 million inhabitants, and 75% of its territory covered by forests.
This small introduction is to say that Mayday, also in a small country like Finland, comes with plenty of celebrations, and it is mostly a day when people gather in the parks for the traditional picnic. It is a family and friends event, and it is the first holiday when the weather is likely to be fair after the long, dark, and cold winter.
What does it actually mean for Finnish people the Labor Day?
Labor Day or 'Vappu' is a holiday that incorporates the workers day, feast of the students that will graduate soon, and a sort of carnival to welcome spring. Now, hold your horses, when you hear the word carnival. Remember we are not in Rio, we are in little Finland, so also the parties are shaped accordingly.
A Finnish twist on the May Day celebrations, developed in the nineteenth century when engineering students would celebrate and party at midnight on the 30th of April while sporting their traditional white caps.
Therefore, nowadays celebrations start the 30th of April officially at 6 pm when the students will gather on the market square of Helsinki, climb to the statue of Havis Amanda washing it before putting the white cap on her head. This is the day when Helsinki is experiencing the full-scale event, and if you wish to check it out, don’t focus your attention only on the Mayday itself.
On the late morning on the 1st of May, students and graduates will then lead a march through Helsinki, ending in large open-air picnics in the parks across the city. Mead and doughnuts are traditional treats on this day.
Having experienced Mayday in a few European cities, I have to admit that the Finnish celebration is something unique, that incorporates much more than the workers day as it is meant internationally, giving the taste of a feast with many flavors, all meant to come together like the waves crashing on a rocky shore: fresh and intense.
In many religions, the spring equinox is an incredibly important time. It represents new light, new life, and new beginnings.
Trees and bushes that lost their leaves over the winter begin to grow new leaves again and also flower in spring. This happens because the temperature of the air and soil starts to warm up and the hours of daylight increase as the days get longer with the coming of spring.
My dad always had big gardens and big ideas about what to do with the things harvested from the garden. Along with what he grew in the garden he also liked to find unique ways to make use of other things in nature. So, keeping that in mind, one Easter when I was growing up, not sure how old I was my dad decided he wanted to try his hand at making wine. He didn’t plan on making your regular grape wine, although we did grow grapes. Instead he chose something that one might not normally consider a normal thing that was harvested from a garden. No, he wanted to make Dandelion wine.
So, the afternoon of that Easter Sunday rolls around. We had gone to mass in the morning and collected our Easter baskets. I’m not sure if my grandparents had already arrived or if we were still waiting for them, but Dad decided it was the best time to pick the dandelions. So, he sent us girls out to go up the dirt road that we lived on and pick all the dandelions we could find. Not an activity my sisters and I particularly relished doing, but you didn’t question Dad. We changed out of our Easter best and loaded with buckets set out to pick the dandelions. Not sure how long we were out there, but we did get quite a few dandelions.
A few days later the time had come for Dad to make his wine. I don’t remember the process; I just remember the bottles of wine fermenting in our basement. Then one evening as we were all settling down for a relaxing evening, we heard a loud “POP” coming from the basement. This was followed by several more pops. When we went to the basement to figure out what was happening, we discovered that the bottles of Dandelion wine had exploded.
So, after all of our hard work picking those lovely flowers, I don’t think anyone ever got to drink the resulting wine.
RICE PIE:
A Rhode Islander’s Recipe to Celebrate an Italian Easter Tradition
Rice pie (torta di riso), is an Italian dessert consisting of eggs, rice, ricotta cheese, and citrus. After baking, it becomes a bottom layer of chewy rice topped with a separate layer of creamy custard.
In 1524, Italian navigator Giovanni da Verrazano was the first European to visit any part of Rhode Island. He came to what is now Block Island and named it “Luisa” after Louise of Savoy, Queen mother of France. Due to a mistake in surveying the land, the original name didn’t stick. Since one of the six largest ancestry groups in the state is that of the Italians, eating rice pie is a celebratory Easter tradition which has stuck.
My maternal grandmother who emigrated from Naples, Italy to Rhode Island made her “crustless” rice pies from memory, as does my mother who finally scribbled the recipe on a card for posterity. I have merely reduced the ingredients from the original recipe to yield one pie rather than six, though this dessert is irresistible and begs indulgence throughout the year.
Ingredients
9 eggs
1 ½ cups white sugar
1 (32 oz.) ricotta cheese (may use skim, fat free, or reduced fat)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups light cream
1 cup cooked white rice (River for starchy consistency)
1 (15 ounce) can, crushed pineapple—drained; or the juice of two
squeezed lemons with lemon zest (depending on your flavor preference for pineapple or lemon)
¼ teaspoon cinnamon for dusting the top of the pie before placing in oven
Directions
1. Beat eggs in large mixing bowl. Add sugar, mixing well. Stir in ricotta and vanilla until smooth. Add cream and stir. Fold in cooked rice and either crushed pineapples or lemon juice/zest.
2. Pour mixture into a Crisco greased, lightly floured 9 ½ by 13 ½ in. Pyrex dish. Sprinkle cinnamon on top.
3. Bake at 325 degrees F for one hour—top should be golden brown; toothpick test. Refrigerate until thoroughly cooled. Tastes best served at room temperature right from its baking dish.
Though pastry chefs at Italian bakeries rise to the occasion to follow their own tried and true recipes for baking rice pies, you might want to establish your own family tradition in the kitchen. Generations of Italian-Americans who settled in Rhode Island have done just that by whisking ingredients for a recipe celebrating a family who sticks together.
Fourteen years of food rationing in Britain officially ended at midnight on 4 July 1954. With the restriction on the sale and purchase of meat and bacon finally lifted, the British people could once again enjoy meat and two veg for Sunday lunch.
Only, they couldn’t. Money was scarce, and the meat in the shops was too expensive for most families. The rich could eat well, the rest of the population survived on anything they could.
But what has this got to do with Easter?
I didn’t eat a bar of chocolate until I was eleven years old and I guess it was a few years later before I was given a nicely wrapped chocolate egg to enjoy. Kids like me didn’t know any better, and why should we? What you didn’t know, didn’t affect you.
The Easter bunny never existed for my sister and I. We didn’t have a television set and thus knew little about the Easter holidays. All the family went to church but on looking back, the preaching flew over our heads. However, I always remember eating fresh meat over the Easter period.
It was many years later before I eventually found out why we had kept so many lovely bunny rabbits in our garden.
The locsolkodás (sprinkling) is a unique Hungarian tradition which dates back to centuries.
Although it's a symbol of fertilization and the start of new life, it's also a form of fun socialization and strengthening of family bond and friendship.
On Monday, young boys and teenagers get together with their friends and hide with bucketful of water behind trees and bushes. Girls walk the streets in groups and pretend to be surprised and squeal with delight when the boys douse them with water from head to toe. The girls reward them with painted eggs.
Easter Tuesday it's the girls' turn to ensure the future fertility of boys by saturating them with water, and yes, boys
Men visit all the women in their families, friends, and neighbors. At each stop, they recite a short locsolóvers (sprinkling poem) and sprinkle perfume or scented water on the hair of the women.
The men must recite a poem, either traditional or ones they come up with such as:
I was walking in a green forest,
and saw a blue violet.
It had started to wilt,
may I sprinkle it?
The women offer them a few bite from the traditional Hungarian breakfast plate and pálinka (strong brandy).
Refusing pálinka is impolite, so you can imagine how drunk the men get by the time they finish visiting every woman they know.
The traditional Hungarian Easter breakfast is rich to begin with but made even richer with the dual purpose palate cleanser/dessert, the sweet cheese.
Growing up we never had ice-water or soda on the table, it was not (and still not) part of the Hungarian diet to mix warm food with icy drinks. If the food called for a drink such as breakfast, we had hot tea, coffee, or hot chocolate, but never cold milk.
Other nations use neutral flavor ice-cream to cleanse the palate between dishes, we had a bite of sweet-cheese between ham and sausage to neutralize the taste and cleanse the palate. But for kids, this was a very tasty breakfast treat.
Ingredients:
1 quart milk
10 eggs
vanilla
1.5 cups sugar
salt to taste
Watch the video to see how it's made:
There are three movies I watch every year around the holiday season.
White Christmas, Love Actually, and Die Hard.
Yes, there are others that get tossed in there from time to time over the years (Christmas Vacation, Lady and the Tramp, Miracle on 34th Street, Bundle of Joy, Gremlins, etc…), but these are the main three. This doesn’t even take into consideration the TV and internet specials I look forward to or the books I re-read each year.
So, yeah. My cinematic tastes vary quite a bit, but that’s just part of who I am. Whatever it is you’re celebrating this time of year, I hope you’re enjoying some sort of comforting tradition with the people you love.
Oh, and I’d love to know what movies, TV specials, and or books you re-read each year.
Here’s a clip from a funny holiday special for anyone interested.
Today on #OurAuthor gang, author Toi Thomas talks about her holiday traditions, watching her favorite movies and reading books. What are some of your favorites?
