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Ukrainian Traditional Easter Basket – Special Food and Symbolism

I love the traditions associated with Ukrainian Easter, especially the Blessing of the Easter Basket, which contains all the food items served on Easter Sunday Brunch.

The Easter Basket of special foods (described below) is arranged on Holy Saturday and taken to church, where a special blessing ceremony with prayers and sprinkling with Holy Water, is performed by the parish priest.  Some churches perform their basket blessing on Easter Sunday, after the Morning Liturgy.

Besides the special foods, the Easter Basket is also decorated with greenery and flowers, as well as colored eggs, and beautiful Pysanky.

Each basket is covered with a hand-embroidered cloth cover, with an Easter motif of pussy willows and Easter Eggs.

This blessed food may not be consumed until after the morning Resurrection Liturgy on Easter Sunday.

The food in the basket is the only food being consumed at the Easter Brunch, which breaks The Great Lent fasting.

After Easter Brunch, the Easter celebration continues for the rest of the day, with family and friends visiting, and enjoying many other foods and desserts.

Today I will describe all the different foods used to fill the basket and their Christian symbolism.

PaskaPaska – Special Easter Bread (sweet yeast bread, rich in eggs, butter, etc), takes center stage in the basket.

Symbolic of Christ, who is the True Bread to Christians. Paska bread is always round and decorated with a dough braid around the perimeter, and an ornamental cross in the middle.  The Cross reminds Christians that Christ died on the Cross for their salvation.

Diets and Watson Smoked HamBaked Ham – a very popular meat for the Slavs as the main dish, because of its richness.  It is symbolic of the great joy, and abundance of Easter.  Some prefer Lamb or Veal.

Kobasa from NYCKobasa – a spicy, garlicky, smoked pork sausage.  Indicative of God’s favor and generosity.

Burachky - Red Beet Vineagrette HorseradishRed Beet Vinaigrette (with Horseradish), or plain Horseradish, is symbolic of the Passion of Christ still in the minds of Christians, but sweetened with some sugar, because of the Resurrection.  The bitter-sweet red-colored mixture is a reminder of the sufferings of Christ.

SaltSalt is also included in the basket, necessary for flavor, and as a reminder to Christians of their duty to others.

ButterButter – A favorite dairy product, is usually nicely displayed and decorated with a cross made out of cloves, or allspice grains.  Some prefer to mold it into the shape of a Lamb.  Butter is symbolic of the goodness of Christ, that we should have toward all things.

CheeseCheese – Creamed cheese, or “Hrudka”, a sweetened cheese ball, decorated with the same herbs as butter, is indicative of the moderation that Christians should have in all things.

Eggs – are another very important food item in the Easter Basket.  All eggs are hard-boiled and kept in their shell. There should be at least one or two hard-boiled eggs per person, for the Easter Brunch.  One of the hard-boiled eggs is peeled, as it will be cut into as many pieces as there are attendees at the Easter Brunch, and shared with everyone, accompanied by salt and horseradish and an Easter Greeting:  Khrystos Voskres! Voistynu Voskres! Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen!

Wishing you a Happy and Blessed Easter!!

37 thoughts on “Ukrainian Traditional Easter Basket – Special Food and Symbolism”

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