It is very interesting to understand what the real life of our ancestors was like. Today we want to talk about food. Dorosh Heritage Tours invites you to travel back in time to the early 20th centuryecentury and visit two picturesque Lemko villages: Malastiv (Маластів, Malastow) and Rozstajne (Розстайне, Rozstajne) in Poland and learn about local food customs. We will use the help of two guides: Mr. Osyp Javorsky, an ethnographer who visited this area in 1918, and Mrs. Teresa Kyshchak, born in Rozstajne, who was later deported from her village.
As you probably know, Lemkos is one of the ethnic groups of the Carpathians. The Lemko areas are located in present-day Poland, Ukraine and Slovakia. The worlds of both villages, as well as most of the world of Lemkos, were destroyed when most of them were deported to the USSR and the former German territories in the north of present-day Poland in the 1940s.
So let's go to happier times before they are deported and learn about their daily lives, especially their diet and eating habits. According to Mr. Javorsky: 'The Lemkos are doing very well from an economic point of view, with earnings in America being the main reason. However, you can feel their modesty in everyday life and meals. Their daily diet consists mainly of the fruit of their stony plots, they work so hard".
Bread, potatoes, cabbage, beans and various grains formed the basis of the local cuisine. On normal days there was usually only one dish per meal on the table. On holidays, several dishes could be served at the same meal, but they were basically the same as on regular days. The meat was rarely eaten. It was kept for the most important holidays such as Easter, Christmas, weddings and funerals, as well as on extremely hard working days.
A Lemko's day usually started at 5 a.m., and a Lemko housewife's day even earlier. She had to cook to serve breakfast 5-6 and then work in the fields. The fire in the stove was lit twice a day, but there were usually four meals a day. The stove was closed (read more about traditional Ukrainian stovesher), and the food was left in the stove to keep warm.
During fasting, breakfast usually consisted of bread with garlic and salt or fried "komperi" (potatoes) with jushka (a special local soup made from sauerkraut). Other days it was bread with milk, butter or zhytnytsia (whey).
After about 2 hours of work, the housewife started preparing lunch, usually earlier. Lunch took place around 12 in winter, when the days were shortest, and 13-14 the rest of the year. Dinner was eaten immediately after work in the field or forest was completed. It mostly consisted of lunch leftovers and snacks.
To understand what the menu for a burger of Malastiv and Rostajne was, let's look at the typical local dishes. They are characteristic of the Lemko kitchen in general and impress with their simplicity.
"Pentsaky" or "pantsaky", is thick barley red, often cooked with mushrooms, dried cherries or plums. It was one of the daily Lemko dishes. Pentsaky was usually eaten with linseed oil, beans or peas. On holidays it was mixed with milk or buttermilk, and on important holidays such as Easter and Christmas it was prepared with offal.
Most soups were made from sauerkraut juice. Pentsaky was often eaten with "Kyselytsia", a thin soup made from oat flour and sourdough with cumin, salt and sometimes oil. "Krip" was another popular soup made from dill. It was very simple: the ground dill was put in the water and boiled. Then it was placed in the bowl and mixed with crumbled bread. In Rozstajne they also cooked a carrot soup with milk and "levesh", a special potato soup with fried onions or sour cream.
Millet and corn were among the most popular grains. "Mastylo" was a porridge made from wheat flour and milk. In Malastiv they added bryndza (a creamy white cheese, known for its characteristic strong smell and sour taste, the cheese crumbly and slightly moist), and fried onions were added to mastylo. In Rozstajne, mastylo was mixed with butter and eggs.
Vegetables were highly regarded in both villages. In Lemkivshchyna (Lemko region), potatoes were an everyday dish. They were served in many different ways: boiled, fried, with milk and dried fruit. "Banduriaky" are special pancakes made from potatoes and flour, fried on cabbage or maple leaves in the stove.
A large amount of cabbage was also consumed, mostly in the form of sauerkraut. It was stored in barrels of 100-300 liters and each family prepared some for the winter.
The dishes made from dough, especially dumplings with cheese or bryndza, were served with butter or fried salo (pork fat). Stuffed dumplings were made only on holidays and were filled with cheese, cabbage, jam, plums and pears.
Bryndza, the cheese mentioned above, was made from sheep's and cow's milk in Rozstajne. A piece of dried calf stomach (the calf must be 1-2 weeks old) was added to the sheep's milk. This was placed in a warm place so that the cheese could develop. This cheese was mixed with cow cheese, then salted, mixed well and driven into a small wooden barrel. The barrel was covered with linen and a wooden cap. A stone was placed on top. Such cheese can be stored for years: the spicier, the better. Bryndza was the daily food of Lemkos.
As I said before, meat was eaten infrequently and only on major holidays, such as Christmas and Easter, when it was cooked. Pork and beef were rarely eaten; Lemkos mainly ate chicken and rabbits.
As for drinks, plain water and sour milk were the most common. They also cooked fruits and berries to make compote and sometimes drank coffee. “Paliunka” (horilka or moonshine) was the most popular alcoholic drink, usually consumed on “important occasions”: baptisms, weddings, funerals, etc. It was often added to the roots of various herbs and heated before drinking. Beer was very common, while wine and mead were quite rare.
How was the Christmas table? For baptism they served soft-boiled eggs or fried eggs, cheese with sour cream and onions, butter, broth with potatoes, rice with milk and cabbage with lard.
Wedding dishes were not very different, but beef broth served with boiled meat and potatoes were very common. The bride also baked a special bread, "ballets", from first-class flour with eggs and raisins. The wedding party often lasted all week.
At funerals, guests were treated to moonshine or beer. After the funeral, the family was treated to cheese, butter, bread and sometimes meat.
If you travel back in time, as we have just done, you can see that our ancestors depended on simple foods for their livelihood, much of which they grew, cultivated and produced themselves. I trust you enjoyed this brief look at the local food customs of Lemkos 100 years ago. Many of these foods are still consumed today in Ukraine and Poland and in other parts of the world where many of our ancestors emigrated and settled. And the traditions surrounding it also continue to exist.
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Literature:
Het volksvoedsel van het district Gorlytsia. Jozef Javorskyi
Traditional Lemko dishes. Teresa Kishchak
