Family History

Sunday, March 27, 2016

Happy Easter! Vesele velikonočne praznike!



Easter greetings to everyone who observed the holiday today.

Our celebration included homemade potica, of course. But this year I also discovered a new tradition: Slovenian Easter eggs, or pirhi.

Last week, my Slovenian teacher gave each of us one of the beautiful, intricately decorated black-and-red eggs ("pisanice") that you can see at the top of the photo. This is a traditional folk art that is unique to Bela Krajina, a region in southeast Slovenia.

That first egg inspired me to try my hand at a much simpler style of decoration, using homemade dyes from natural ingredients. This is an Easter tradition in Slovenia and many other Slavic cultures--and also a Jewish tradition at Passover. I decided to start with one of the most common sources of natural dye: boiled red onion skins.

The result was the deep russet color eggs you can see in the photo. The decorative white markings are created by binding small leaves or herbs to the eggs before dyeing.

I will be posting details about this method of egg-coloring in a future post. But I wanted to extend Easter greetings before the day is done.

Vesele velikonočne praznike! 

Update: Finally, almost a year later, I posted the recipe!

 



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