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Kūčios
Kūčios () or Kūtės (Samogitian Dialect) is the traditional Christmas Eve dinner in Lithuania, held on December 24. The meal is a family occasion which includes many traditions of both pagan and Christian origin. Some traditions are no longer widespread and usually Lithuanians just enjoy dinner with relatives and friends while the main events and festivities are left for Christmas Day. Importance Everyone in a family makes a special effort to come home for the Christmas Eve supper, even from great distances. They make the journey not so much for the meal as for the sacred ritual of Kūčios. Kūčios draws the family members closer, bringing everyone together and strengthening the family ties. In this spirit, if a family member has died that year or cannot attend the meal (only for very serious reasons) an empty place is left at the table. A plate is still placed on the table and a chair is drawn up, but no spoons, knives or forks are set. A small candle is placed on the plate a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kūčios
Kūčios () or Kūtės (Samogitian Dialect) is the traditional Christmas Eve dinner in Lithuania, held on December 24. The meal is a family occasion which includes many traditions of both pagan and Christian origin. Some traditions are no longer widespread and usually Lithuanians just enjoy dinner with relatives and friends while the main events and festivities are left for Christmas Day. Importance Everyone in a family makes a special effort to come home for the Christmas Eve supper, even from great distances. They make the journey not so much for the meal as for the sacred ritual of Kūčios. Kūčios draws the family members closer, bringing everyone together and strengthening the family ties. In this spirit, if a family member has died that year or cannot attend the meal (only for very serious reasons) an empty place is left at the table. A plate is still placed on the table and a chair is drawn up, but no spoons, knives or forks are set. A small candle is placed on the plate a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve is the evening or entire day before Christmas Day, the festival commemorating the birth of Jesus. Christmas Day is observed around the world, and Christmas Eve is widely observed as a full or partial holiday in anticipation of Christmas Day. Together, both days are considered one of the most culturally significant celebrations in Christendom and Western society. Christmas celebrations in the denominations of Western Christianity have long begun on Christmas Eve, due in part to the Christian liturgical day starting at sunset, a practice inherited from Jewish tradition and based on the story of Creation in the Book of Genesis: "And there was evening, and there was morning – the first day." Many churches still ring their church bells and hold prayers in the evening; for example, the Nordic Lutheran churches. Since tradition holds that Jesus was born at night (based in Luke 2:6-8), Midnight Mass is celebrated on Christmas Eve, traditionally at midnight, in c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kissel
Kissel or kisel ( et, kissell, fi, kiisseli, Livonian: ''kīsõl'', ltg, keiseļs, lv, ķīselis, lt, kisielius, pl, kisiel, rus, кисель, r=kiselʼ, uk, кисiль, , , ) is a cold-solidified dish with the consistency of a thick gel. If the kissel is made less thick, it can be drunk—this is common in Poland, Russia and Ukraine. Grain kissel / etymology and history Its name is derived from a Slavic word meaning "sour", after a similar old Slavic dish—a leavened flour porridge (or weak sourdough) which was made from grain—most commonly oats, but any grain, and even legumes like peas or lentils could be used, though bean kissels usually were not leavened—and lacked the sweetness of the modern variants. Kissel is first mentioned in the old East Slavic Primary Chronicle where there is a story of how it saved the 10th-century Rus' city of Bilhorod, besieged by nomadic Pechenegs in 997. When the food in the city became scarce and a hunger started, the inhabitan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Margarine
Margarine (, also , ) is a spread used for flavoring, baking, and cooking. It is most often used as a substitute for butter. Although originally made from animal fats, most margarine consumed today is made from vegetable oil. The spread was originally named ''oleomargarine'' from Latin for ''oleum'' (olive oil) and Greek ''margarite'' ("pearl", indicating luster). The name was later shortened to ''margarine''. Margarine consists of a water-in-fat emulsion, with tiny droplets of water dispersed uniformly throughout a fat phase in a stable solid form. While butter is made by concentrating the butterfat of milk through agitation, modern margarine is made through a more intensive processing of refined vegetable oil and water. Per federal regulation, margarine must have a minimum fat content of 80 percent (with a maximum of 16% water) to be labeled as such in the United States, although the term is used informally to describe vegetable-oil-based spreads with lower fat content. In Br ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Honey
Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several bees, the best-known of which are honey bees. Honey is made and stored to nourish bee colonies. Bees produce honey by gathering and then refining the sugary secretions of plants (primarily floral nectar) or the secretions of other insects, like the honeydew of aphids. This refinement takes place both within individual bees, through regurgitation and enzymatic activity, as well as during storage in the hive, through water evaporation that concentrates the honey's sugars until it is thick and viscous. Honey bees stockpile honey in the hive. Within the hive is a structure made from wax called honeycomb. The honeycomb is made up of hundreds or thousands of hexagonal cells, into which the bees regurgitate honey for storage. Other honey-producing species of bee store the substance in different structures, such as the pots made of wax and resin used by the stingless bee. Honey for human consumption is collected from wild ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Multigrain Bread
Multigrain bread is a type of bread prepared with two or more types of grain. Grains used include barley, flax, millet, oats, wheat, and whole-wheat flour, among others. Some varieties include edible seeds in their preparation, such as flaxseed, quinoa, pumpkin seeds, and sunflower seeds. Rye and sourdough multigrain breads are additional varieties. Preparations include 7-grain and 9-grain bread, among others. Multigrain bread may be prepared using whole, unprocessed grains, although commercial varieties do not necessarily always contain whole grains. Nutritional content Whole grain multigrain breads contain a dietary fibre content of up to four times greater than white breads and may also contain more vitamins and protein compared to white bread. Multigrain breads also provide complex carbohydrates. Commercial varieties Multigrain bread is commercially mass-produced and marketed to consumers. Some commercial varieties are prepared using 100% whole grain flour. Between 1989 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opium Poppy
''Papaver somniferum'', commonly known as the opium poppy or breadseed poppy, is a species of flowering plant in the family Papaveraceae. It is the species of plant from which both opium and poppy seeds are derived and is also a valuable ornamental plant, grown in gardens. Its native range is probably the eastern Mediterranean, but is now obscured by ancient introductions and cultivation, being naturalized across much of Europe and Asia. This poppy is grown as an agricultural crop on a large scale, for one of three primary purposes. The first is to produce seeds that are eaten by humans, commonly known as poppy seed. The second is to produce opium for use mainly by the pharmaceutical industry. The third is to produce other alkaloids, mainly thebaine and oripavine, that are processed by the pharmaceutical industry into drugs such as hydrocodone and oxycodone. Each of these goals has special breeds that are targeted at one of these businesses, and breeding efforts (including biotec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sauerkraut
Sauerkraut (; , "sour cabbage") is finely cut raw cabbage that has been fermented by various lactic acid bacteria. It has a long shelf life and a distinctive sour flavor, both of which result from the lactic acid formed when the bacteria ferment the sugars in the cabbage leaves.Gil MarksEncyclopedia of Jewish Food p. 1052.Joseph Mercola, Brian Vaszily, Kendra Pearsall, Nancy Lee BentleyDr. Mercola's Total Health Cookbook & Program p. 227. It is one of the best-known national dishes in Germany. Although in English-speaking countries it is known under its German name, it is also widely known in Eastern Europe and other places (see below). For example, in Russia, () 'sour cabbage' or () 'fermented cabbage' has been a traditional and ubiquitous dish from ancient times. Overview and history Fermented foods have a long history in many cultures, with sauerkraut being one of the most well-known instances of traditional fermented moist cabbage side dishes. The Roman writers Cato ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cranberry
Cranberries are a group of evergreen dwarf shrubs or trailing vines in the subgenus ''Oxycoccus'' of the genus ''Vaccinium''. In Britain, cranberry may refer to the native species ''Vaccinium oxycoccos'', while in North America, cranberry may refer to ''Vaccinium macrocarpon''. ''Vaccinium oxycoccos'' is cultivated in central and northern Europe, while ''Vaccinium macrocarpon'' is cultivated throughout the northern United States, Canada and Chile. In some methods of classification, ''Oxycoccus'' is regarded as a genus in its own right. They can be found in acidic bogs throughout the cooler regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Cranberries are low, creeping shrubs or vines up to long and in height; they have slender, wiry stems that are not thickly woody and have small evergreen leaves. The flowers are dark pink, with very distinct ''reflexed'' petals, leaving the style and stamens fully exposed and pointing forward. They are pollinated by bees. The fruit is a berry that i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Potatoes
The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Wild potato species can be found from the southern United States to southern Chile. The potato was originally believed to have been domesticated by Native Americans independently in multiple locations,University of Wisconsin-Madison, ''Finding rewrites the evolutionary history of the origin of potatoes'' (2005/ref> but later genetic studies traced a single origin, in the area of present-day southern Peru and extreme northwestern Bolivia. Potatoes were domesticated there approximately 7,000–10,000 years ago, from a species in the ''Solanum brevicaule'' complex. Lay summary: In the Andes region of South America, where the species is indigenous, some close relatives of the potato are cultivated. Potatoes were introduced to Europe from the Americas by the Spanish in the second half of the 16th c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
European Eel
The European eel (''Anguilla anguilla'') is a species of eel, a snake-like, catadromous fish. They are normally around and rarely reach more than , but can reach a length of up to in exceptional cases. Eels have been important sources of food both as adults (including jellied eels of East London) and as glass eels. Glass-eel fishing using basket traps has been of significant economic value in many river estuaries on the western seaboard of Europe. While the species' lifespan in the wild has not been determined, captive specimens have lived over 80 years. A specimen known as "the Brantevik Eel" lived for 155 years in the well of a family home in Brantevik, a fishing village in southern Sweden. Conservation status The European eel is a critically endangered species. Since the 1970s, the numbers of eels reaching Europe is thought to have declined by around 90% (possibly even 98%). Contributing factors include overfishing, parasites such as ''Anguillicola crassus'', bar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Onion
An onion (''Allium cepa'' L., from Latin ''cepa'' meaning "onion"), also known as the bulb onion or common onion, is a vegetable that is the most widely cultivated species of the genus ''Allium''. The shallot is a botanical variety of the onion which was classified as a separate species until 2010. Its close relatives include garlic, scallion, leek, and chive. This genus also contains several other species variously referred to as onions and cultivated for food, such as the Japanese bunching onion (''Allium fistulosum''), the tree onion (''A.'' × ''proliferum''), and the Canada onion (''Allium canadense''). The name ''wild onion'' is applied to a number of ''Allium'' species, but ''A. cepa'' is exclusively known from cultivation. Its ancestral wild original form is not known, although escapes from cultivation have become established in some regions. The onion is most frequently a biennial or a perennial plant, but is usually treated as an annual and harvested in its f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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