Culture is defined as: the beliefs, customs, arts, etc., of a particular society, group, place, or time and food is defined as: something that people eat. We can connect to our culture by the foods that we eat. We use food to bring our family and friends together for different types of celebrations or just for the Sunday dinner. We take great care into what ingredients we use, how we prepare the foods, and how we enjoy eating all the food that has been prepared. Connecting to our culture is an important aspect in how our families continue to share traditions and it teaches our children about where their ancestors came from. Culture usually starts with where our relatives lived and how they grew up, what was important in their families becomes important in our families.
In this chapter I would like to share with you how food and culture are incorporated into my family and can easily be incorporated into an event. I'm going to give you a taste, with no pun intended, of our Lithuanian Easter aka Velykos. .
Easter is a very important time in our house. Not only are we celebrating the Resurrection of Our Lord, but we are celebrating my husbands Lithuanian Heritage. Lithuania is a predominately Catholic Country and since his parents and grandparents are now deceased, I felt it important to keep his traditions going and to also teach our children about the Lithuanian culture.
The week before Easter Sunday is called the Great Week. We start by attending mass and receive our blessed palms, we bring them home and place them behind our crosses or other religious pictures. We continue the week by cleaning the entire house top to bottom and then we make our lists of what food we will be making for our Easter meal. Sometimes our shopping list takes us to another stated to buy what we need and other times I fudge the ingredients, which doesn't always go over well with my husband. .
The first thing we do is order all the Kielbasa from the Polish market in Philadelphia.