Wigilia

[janradder]

About ten years ago, before we had kids, haddayr and I started having a traditional Polish Christmas Eve dinner. It started out small -- just a few dishes and a few courses -- but each year, I learned more about the customs and traditions of the Polish Wigilia dinner. One year my grandmother, hearing what I was doing and remembering her own families Wigilia, sent me an article from one of the Polish papers she gets. It had recipes for Wigilia dishes and details of how the table is set. My grandmother highlighted all the food that she remembered from her own childhood that her mother would make. The next year, I set about conforming my own dinner to what my grandmother had told me about and what I'd read in the paper. It's a lot of work. I literally start cooking the meal at the beginning of December (making one or more dishes a night) and finish the night of Christmas Eve. But I really like it. Though my family never followed the tradition, instead opting for a more American Christmas Day meal of turkey and mashed potatoes and vegetables, and though I'm neither Catholic nor Christian, I feel a connection to my heritage (and my grandmother) each year when we have our own wieczerza wigilijna.

On the table, the boys and I scatter hay to remember that the baby Jesus was born in a manger. On top of this, I lay a white tablecloth to represent the Virgin Mary. In the center of the table, I place the opłatek -- a large wafer similar to a communion wafer that we will break communally before the meal. When we set the table, we put an extra chair and place-setting in case an uninvited guest should knock on our door or so that the spirits of deceased family members could sit with us if they so desired. The boys then start to peer out the window as the sky grows dark, looking for the first star of the evening so that we can start our meal.

The meal itself is meatless, though fish is not considered a meat and, technically, Wigilia is a day of fasting though it is a Black Fast (which means no meat) and there are few days where anyone in our family eats more. My dinner is an eleven course meal and has three fish dishes and three soups though, really, the dinner just needs to consist of an odd number of courses, usually seven, nine or eleven. The food represents the field (vegetables and grains), the forest (nuts and mushrooms) and the streams (fish). Once we come to the table, we break the opłatek and give blessings and good wishes to those around the table. Then we sit down and eat. This is our menu:

1st course: Borscht (or barszcz, in Polish) with uszka (mushroom dumplings)
2nd course: Creamed herring with rye bread and pickled beets, mushrooms and cucumbers
3rd course: Baked mushrooms
4th course: Noodles and poppyseeds
5th course: Fried fish fillets with horseradish sauce
6th course: Almond soup
7th course: Pierogi and kapusta (sauerkraut)
8th course: Mushroom soup with yeast fingers
9th course: Gołabki (mushroom-filled cabbage rolls)
10th course: Poached Pike
11th course: Dessert -- dried fruit compote, poppyseed roll, nuts, chocolates, tangerines, chrusciki (deep fried cookies), raspberry cordial (for the kids) and cognac (for the adults)

After dinner, several hours later, the kids head up to bed and the adults clean-up. Like I said, it really is a lot of work, but I really enjoy doing it.


Wesołych Świąt!

Comments

[haddayr.livejournal.com]

She DID love me. Toward the end she thought I was you, but I consider that a high compliment.