The belief in Resurrection and immortality is prevalent
in orthodox religion. Romanians do the so-called
„charities” for their deads by cooking
different specific meals for each celebration. The most
important is Coliva, a sweet wheat
porridge which is cooked everytime someone dies, for the
funerals or on a religious celebration, when the deads are
mentioned. The „coliva” is placed on
a plate, decorated with the cross sign on top and is brought
to the church for the priest's blessing. The
„coliva” signifies the human body that
has to be buried for coming back to life, afterwards. The
same as the wheat grain rises from the ground and grows
into a new plant after is sowed, so will resurrect into
eternal life the soul of the one deceased and buried. This
is the Romanians’ hope and belief. Boiling, the wheat
grains bond to each other, symbolizing the connection
between the members of the church. The connection to the
deceased is made by holding the plate with
„coliva” and dangling it from upside down,
while the priest sings the Eternal Prayer.
The biggest deads’ commemorations, whom are called
„old men” or
„ancestors”, are The Winter Old
People (in February) and The Summer Old People (in June).
On these occasions, the believers go to the church with
„coliva” and bread rolls for receiving
the priest’s blessing, then give it for charity to
the poors. The Old People’s tradition is about
giving for charity „coliva” and a
small bowl full with milk rice and, for The Summer Old Men,
the same „coliva” given with cherries
on the top of the bowl. Everyone gives for charity what he
has, only that it’s important to be given with faith
and Christian love. Charity includes clothes too. On Christmas
and Easter, the most important Christian celebrations, the
Romanians prepare lots of special and tasty meals, and they
don’t forget to give for charity in the memory for
their dead’s souls. Both on the Christmas morning and
in the Ressurection Night (this is the name for the
Easter’s Eve night) before eating the meals
they’ve prepared, Romanians first have to give some
of the food to the poors.
The Resurrection Night is magic and we all live it with
faith and emotion. This is the night when we go to the
church to receive the Ressurection Light which is the symbol
of life winning against death, and of the Jesus light victory
against darkness. After a long six weeks of vegeterian
diet, the longest diet of the year, during which we are
purifying both body and soul, we are looking forward to this
night when we’ll bring this Holly Light into our homes,
helping us to become better people, straight and getting us
able to change in better all our existence. Since evening
or even earlier, both young and old believers would come to
the church with humbleness and bashfulness to assist to the
Ressurection liturgy. Also parents even carry their babies
to receive the Lord’s Ressurection miracol. The night
has a special charm, each of us feels the great event coming
and tries to prepare his soul. You feel like a quiet inside
you, like an inner peace, such as you won’t feel on
another day. We go to the church close to midnight, and as
we get out, we see the street crowded with people, our
neighbors, who get out of their buildings and go to the
church too, in groups, staying close together with their
families and friends, each one with a candle in his/her
hands. Outside is quiet and peace, even nature seems connected
to the magic of this night. We are passing by the fresh and
fragrant lane formed by the lime trees along the street, with
fresh young leaves, thrilled by the chilly air of the spring
night. A soft breeze blows but until we arrive to the
church it stops. Even the rain fears to drop on this holly
night : although it has rained a few drops before midnight,
now as we were going to the church it has stopped, like
through a magic!
Our small church seems not big enough for so many believers
who are coming on this night, so most of them stop and stay
outside in the street, from where they can see the liturgy
on a big screen, arranged in the church yard. While
we’re staying there, in the street, we can see the
priest who gets out in the garden and surrounds the church
with a big candle in his hand, bringing us the Resurrection
Light. We hear the bells knelling and feel a big emotion.
The crowd begins to vibrate, we hear whispers, then we see
the first people who succeded to receive the light coming!
I’m going straight to one of them for lighting my
candle, and with a big emotion in my voice, I tell him :
„Jesus Christ Has Resurrected!”. He
answers me : „He has trully Resurrected!”.
This is the greeting we’ll have to use instead of
„Good morning!” or
„Good evening!” until the celebration
of the Rising. The Rising of Jesus is
another religious celebration which we’ll be
celebrating with „cozonac” and painted
eggs too, like we do on the Easter. In the meantime, the
priest begins to sing : „Jesus Christ Has
Ressurected / Stepping with death over death / And to those
from the graves / Giving life!” Anyone who has
heard this song before knows what a thrill these words gives
to you and how you start singing it together with all the
believers, who are surrounding the church, in a row,
following the priest with the light candles in their hands.
I come back with the light to my husband and he lights up
the candle too.
Then we are going home with such joy and emotion,
keeping the lighting candle in our hand, like a precious
treasure, keeping it out from the softly breeze. People are
passing by us carefully with their lit candles in their hands,
going straight to their homes where the special meals, cooked
by the house-wives due to this great celebration, are waiting
to be served. We are passing through the green lane again
with a young leaves and burnt candles scent and we
„get drunk” by the quiet of the night
and the Resurrection magic, while the Holly Light reveals our
emotion which we are sharing with all the Romanian people.
It’s like I could see the Romanian map formed by
millions of candles lighted with the Resurrection Light,
spreading the miracle outside the borders, bringing some
peace and faith to this crazy world. Once we are home, we
put the candle in front of the Virgin Mary (we call her The
Lord’s Mother) icon, where it will burn out for
three days continously, as long as the Easter celebration
lasts. Then we give to one of our neighbors a piece of each
meal for charity. Peacefully, we sit around the table, knock
a red colored egg with each other, eat a piece of the cake
called „cozonac”, some
„drob” (baked mixture of the lamb’s
organs : liver, lungs and heart) and roast lamb with green
garlick and onion, then we drink a glass of red wine, for
our Lord Jesus Christ Resurrection.
Every year, on the 9th of March, we are celebrating
the martyrdom of the 40 Saints Martyrs of Sevasta, who have
been killed for their belief in Jesus, by drowning in a lake.
They have been called „mucenici”
(martyrs) because they were tortured in order to give up
to their faith and this sufference for a religious belief
is called „mucenicie”, in English -
martyrdom. For their mentioning, we cook some delicious
cookies 8 shaped, which have the same name :
„mucenici”. There are 2 kinds of
„mucenici” depending
by the region where they are cooked :
-
the „mucenici” made in Wallachia
(mucenici soup)
are very small, cooked like noodles, with water,
sugar, cinnamon and walnuts;
-
the „mucenici” cooked in the
Moldavia
region are baked, put in orange syrup,
then honey and walnuts all over.
I cook both of these cookies and, therefore, I can give
you the recipes, perhaps you’d like to cook it
yourselves.
-
1. Little Moldavian „Saints”
-
-
Ingredients for the dough :
-
-
1/2 kg of wheat flour (2 cups)
-
25 g fresh yeast
-
150 g melted butter (3/4 cup)
-
a teaspoonful of salt
-
250 ml warm milk (1 cup)
-
2 eggs
-
2 spoons of sugar
-
vanilla, rhum essences
-
Ingredients for the syrup :
-
-
150 g sugar ( 1/2 cup)
-
150 ml water (1/2 cup)
-
1/2 of an orange peel (grated)
-
Ingredients for the topping :
-
-
250 g honey (1 cup)
-
250 g grounded walnuts (1 cup)
Prepare a dough from the aforementioned ingredients.
The dough must be elastic, fluffy and not to stick on hands.
Add more flour if sticks. Leave it for an hour in a warm
place to grow until doubles its volume. Meanwhile, preheat
the oven. When the dough has lightened enough, divide it
into several equal parts, about 12-14. Take each part,
make thin rolls, like a finger diameter and give it the
shape of the number 8. Stick very well the ends by
pressing them to each other. Then put the parts in
griddles and let them lighten more for another 20 minutes.
Spread each „little saint” over the top
with egg yolk, then you can introduce the griddles into the
preheat oven at 180°C (350°F) - which is a
moderate temperature - for 30 minutes, till they get a
little brown. Meanwhile boil the sugar, water and orange
graded peel to make the syrup. Let it cool. When the
„mucenici” are ready, take them out
of the oven and, immediately, dip one by one into the syrup
for a few seconds, on each surface, to get moist. Arrange
them on a tray and let cool, then cover each one with honey
and roll it in grounded walnuts. Good appetite!
-
2. Romanian Mucenici Soup
(pronounced as „moo-cheh-neech”)
-
-
Ingredients :
-
-
1 cup wheat flour
-
1/4 teaspoon salt
-
1/4 cup water
-
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
-
1 cup sugar, at your taste
-
1 cup grounded walnuts
-
1 cinnamon stick and powder
-
1 spoonful of lemon and orange peel (graded)
-
vanilla and rhum essences
-
purchased small pasta shapes.
Mix the flour, baking powder, salt and water into a mixing
bowl, to make an elastic dough, rather tough and knead it
for a few minutes. If sticks, add more flour. Form into a
ball, cover and let stand at room temperature for 10 minutes.
Pinch small pieces of dough (as it comes between 3 fingers),
roll it between your palms into a long, thin cylinder
(about 1/4 inch = 6 cm) that just can wrap arround your
finger. Put the edges together to form a ring, then twist
the middle to form an 8. Flour your hands and the work
surface as many times as you need. After you finish
forming each little 8 (mucenic), place it on a flour-covered
dish or waxed paper. Let dry for a few hours (better make
them a day before cooking). In Romania, we have a special
8-shaped tool and we cut the 8’s from the spreaded
dough (5 mm = 0,2 in) thick.
Fill a large pot (of 3 liters = 101, 44 fl.oz capacity) to
3/4 full with water, add a teaspoon of salt and turn to
boil. When boiling, drop the pasta shapes into the liquid,
turn to boil again, then lower the heat to moderate. Stir
gently to be sure the pastas don’t stick on the bottom
of the pot, then let boil to low heat for half an hour, if
the pastas are homemade. Otherwise, boil the pastas according
to the instructions on the package. If using homemade
pastas, they will normally be finished cooking once all the
pastas have floated from the top of the water to the bottom.
When the pastas have been cooked, add sugar to taste, then
bring to boil again over high heat, stirring occasionally
until the sugar is dissolved. Turn off the heat and let
cool. Add cinnamon stick, a spoon of lemon and orange graded
peel (be sure to avoid using the white part, which will make
the soup bitter), vanilla and rhum essences. Stir 1/4 of
the grounded walnuts with 1-2 spoons of cold water until
whitened, then pour some soup, stir, then add this mixture
into the soup pot and stir well. Transfer the soup into a
large bowl and place it in the refrigerator until cool.
Serve in bowls, with a spoonful of grounded walnuts and
cinnamon powder on top. Good appetite!
Copyright Adina Dosan - 2006
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