Welcome!

Hello, my dear reader! This is my blog about Hungary. I started it during my Erasmus in Budapest and here you can find stories about this country, episodes, pictures, links, suggestions, recipes...all mixed with my impressive sense of humor!

1 Apr 2010

Easter in Hungary: sprinkling and painting eggs


Easter is coming! In Italy we use to give chocolate big eggs with a surprise inside, a gift for children and sometimes also for other members of the family. Our traditional Easter`s cake is the Colomba, the Easter Dove, not so different from Panettone and Pandoro, but with the shape of a Dove."Which part do you prefer?" "I want the bottom!" "I wish the head" (that`s of course the same both in appearance and in taste!) It`s the regular after-Easter-lunch conversation in my country. However the only other tradition that I can remember is the one of Catholic people, who bring eggs (regular and chocolates ones) at the Holy Mass to the benediction. Then they use to eat them as starter, before lunch. In Hungary there are more customs.
Sprinkling
A very curios, particular, folk tradition regard young boys and girls. On Easter Monday men visit their loved women and they sprinkle them, nowadays with cologne, in old times with water. The reason is in the fertility effect of water they believe in. Women will give hand-painted eggs them as gifts. During the week before Easter women must prepare themselves for the occasion, cleaning up the house, cooking very good desserts and painting dozens of eggs with a special technique they learn from old Hungarian women. It seems that women are ashamed during the sprinkling rite, maybe because of its sexual meaning.
Painted eggs...not eatable!
Here you can`t buy eggs with surprises, but rabbits. Eventually you can find chocolate eggs, but they are quite small and - sadly - empty...

1 commenti:

Anonymous said...

You can buy choc eggs with surprise in them! That's Kinder Surprise :P