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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 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve is the evening or entire day before Christmas, the festival commemorating nativity of Jesus, the birth of Jesus in Christianity, Jesus. Christmas Day is observance of Christmas by country, 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 world, Western society. Christmas celebrations in the Christian denomination, 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 Genesis creation narrative, 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 Christian prayer, prayers in the evening; for example, the Nordic Lutheran churches. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kūčiukai
''Kūčiukai'' (''šližikai'', ''prėskutė''), also called Christmas cakes, are a traditional Lithuanian dish served on Kūčios, the traditional Lithuanian Christmas Eve dinner. They are small, slightly sweet pastries made from leavened dough and poppy seeds. They vary in sweetness and are usually eaten dry but can be served soaked in poppy milk or with cranberry kissel. History The ancient dish Kūčia was made from wheat, beans, peas, barley, poppies and seasoned with honey. In Aukštaitija, for some time, Kūčia was called porridge of coarse barley groats, eaten with poppies and tossing - honey-sweetened water. In Panevėžys region at the beginning of the 20th century, Kūčia was made from a mixture of wheat and peas flavored with water sweetened with poppies and honey. A common feature of the various Christmas variants was that the dish was made from whole or slightly crushed cereals, groats and flavored with honey, poppy seeds or hemp. After the First World War, sma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kissel
Kissel or kisel is a simple dish with the consistency of a thick gel, and made of sweet fruit, berry, grains (oatmeal, rye, wheat), peas, or from milk. It belongs to the group of cold- solidified desserts, although it can be served warm. Etymology "Kissel" 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, including legumes like peas or lentils could be used. Bean kissels were typically not leavened, and lacked the sweetness of the modern variants. History Grain-based kissels were known 9000 years ago in ancient Anatolia and Mesopotamia, they are mentioned in Sumerian and Akkadian texts. In ancient times, oatmeal kissel was prepared by fermentation of oat milk. In Russia, oatmeal, rye or wheat kissel was an everyday dish, but also a ritual one, eaten at funeral feasts. Hot oatmeal kissel was usually eaten with linseed or hemp oil. When cool ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Honey
Honey is a sweet and viscous substance made by several species of 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, and 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 ... [...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 was the eastern Mediterranean region, but has since been obscured by widespread introduction and cultivation since ancient times to the present day. It is now naturalized across much of the world with temperate climates. This poppy is grown as an agricultural crop on a large scale, for one of three primary purposes: to produce poppy seeds, to produce opium (for use mainly by the pharmaceutical industry), and to produce other alkaloids (mainly thebaine and oripavine) that are processed by pharmaceutical companies 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 biotechnological o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sauerkraut
Sauerkraut (; , ) 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. Overview and history Fermented foods have a long history in many cultures. The Roman writers Cato (in his '' De agri cultura'') and Columella (in his '' De re Rustica'') mentioned preserving cabbages and turnips with salt. According to Wilhelm Holzapfel et al, Plinius the Elder, writing in the first century A.D., is reputed to have been the first writer to describe the making of sauerkraut by preserving what the Romans called ''salt cabbage'' in earthen vessels. Popular folklore has imagined that sauerkraut was introduced to Europe by the trade networks formed across Eurasia by the Golden Horde. However, according to Mack and Surina (2005), there is no evidence to support this theory, nor any evidence that f ... [...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''. Cranberries are low, creeping shrubs or vines up to long and in height; they have slender stems that are not thickly woody and have small evergreen leaves. The flowers are dark pink. The fruit is a berry (botany), berry that is larger than the leaves of the plant; it is initially light green, turning red when ripe. It is edible, but has an acidic taste. 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 ''V. 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. Cranberries can be found in acidic bogs throughout the cooler regions of the North ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Potatoes
The potato () is a starchy tuberous vegetable native to the Americas that is consumed as a staple food in many parts of the world. Potatoes are underground stem tubers of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'', a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Wild potato species can be found from the southern United States to southern Chile. Genetic studies show that the cultivated potato has a single origin, in the area of present-day southern Peru and extreme northwestern Bolivia. Potatoes were domesticated there about 7,000–10,000 years ago from a species in the '' S. brevicaule'' complex. Many varieties of the potato are cultivated in the Andes region of South America, where the species is indigenous. The Spanish introduced potatoes to Europe in the second half of the 16th century from the Americas. They are a staple food in many parts of the world and an integral part of much of the world's food supply. Following millennia of selective breeding, there are now over 5,00 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
European Eel
The European eel (''Anguilla anguilla'') is a species of eel. Their life history was a mystery for thousands of years, and mating in the wild has not yet been observed. The five stages of their development were originally thought to be different species. They are critically endangered due to hydroelectric dams, overfishing by fisheries on coasts for human consumption, and parasites. Description European eels undergo five stages of development in their lifecycle: larva (leptocephalus), glass eel, elver, yellow eel, and silver eel. Adults in the yellow phase are typically around and rarely reach more than , but they can reach a length of up to in exceptional cases. They have 110 to 120 vertebrae. tend to live approximately 15–20 years in the wild, although captive specimens have lived for over 80 years. One such 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. Ecology Eels tend to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Onion
An onion (''Allium cepa'' , from Latin ), 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 2011. The onion's close relatives include garlic, scallion, leek, and chives. The genus contains several other species variously called onions and cultivated for food, such as the Japanese bunching onion '' Allium fistulosum'', the tree onion ''Allium'' × ''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 first growing season. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
