It’s time to hunt out the basket for the annual Święcone (Easter basket blessing). This tradition dates back many centuries when priests would visit homes blessing all the Easter food. This tradition moved with time into churches with villagers bringing huge baskets to carry the food they had prepared.  Now we take small baskets symbolic of our fridges bursting with food ready for the great feast on Easter Sunday.

White napkin lining the basket

Not forgetting the white napkin to line the basket, we add small twigs of bukszpan (box green) or other fresh leaves, symbolising the hope of the Resurrection. In the centre we add the lamb made of butter or sugar, symbolising a gentle, innocent and sacrificial Christ with a little flag featuring the cross and the word Alleluja.

So far, so good, the photo is courtesy of my son. Around this we add our decorated Easter eggs for new life, horseradish, the sour taste symbolising the passion of Christ,  salt as the substance required for life, cake (babka or mazurek) and bread as Christ said he was the bread of life.  Also ham or smoked sausage for health and fertility.  In times gone by in Kresy (Eastern borderlands)  a sweet Pascha would be baked, with cottage cheese, milk and sugar.  A large round cake called Kołacz would be made in other parts of Poland, spread with almond or nut paste or cheese.  The lamb takes central place and another cloth, often embroidered in regional motifs covers the food on the journey to church for the blessing.

Kraszanki or Pisanki – what’s the difference?

Kraszanki are the eggs you dye in a single colour either with a shop bought set or with natural methods.

Pisanki are designs drawn on eggs with hot wax, plunged into several colours of dye after which the wax is melted off revealing a rich array of motifs.

You can also make Drapanki from your Kraszanki by scratching patterns into them. These are also known as skrobanki.

I bought these drapanki in Kraków last week, apparently made by a lady in her eighties who continues this tradition with a small blade. Oklejanki, traditionally made with stuck on petals and Nalepianki consists of stuck on patterns, already cut out of paper, particularly in the Łowicz (Łódz area) region. The earliest pisanki found in Poland, near Opole date back to the 10th century.

Legend about the eggs

There’s an old Slavic legend that says a man on his way to the market to sell eggs, left his basket in order to help Christ bear his cross. On returning, he found his eggs had been miraculously transformed into beautiful, coloured Eggs, which of course fetched a much higher price.   In the old days, there was a belief that the eggs take on a magical strength and could heal all illnesses. They were therefore the first food eaten at the Easter table. And so far I haven’t mentioned chocolate eggs once! A tradition that has also taken over in Poland now, from the West.

And for the blessing