Since we’re all cooped up during this pandemic, we have tons of time to explore our family traditions, specifically of the culinary nature!
Yesterday’s adventure took us to Poland- Andy’s family homeland. His great grandparents (on his dad’s side) came over from Poland and shortly after, established the Jorasz Family Dairy in 1915. Fun fact- Jorasz (jurosh) pronounced in Polish actually sounds like ‘yur-oshe.’
Just over 100 years later, we are still celebrating the Christmas Eve holiday the same way they did it back then, at the family farmhouse, with all the available family in attendance.
So why write about a Christmas tradition in April?
Just like the Polish on Christmas Eve, Catholics on Fridays during Lent to do not eat meat. We’re getting pretty tired of grill cheese and tomato soup around here so we decided to make Potato Cheddar Pierogi. Being that you all are likely stuck at home as we are, I thought that you might find Polish traditions as interesting as I do, so here ya go!
On December 24th, after evening milking and chores are done, we start our Christmas feast by saying grace and sharing Oplatek. Oplatek is thin, unleavened bread that looks sort of like the Eucharist we share at church every Sunday. Everyone at the table, often over 25 of us, take turns, oldest to youngest, sharing our oplatek with everyone at the table, also from oldest to youngest. As you can imagine, this process takes some time. It’s really very special though- as we share our oplatek in turn, we wish each person a Merry Christmas and prosperity for the year to come.
After we share oplatek, the first course is served- tomato soup. This is dished up and passed around the table until everyone has a bowl. I’m not sure why we use tomato soup and not borscht (beet based soup), which is more traditional. I can only imagine that beets were not readily available to the early Jorasz’s up here in the UP, or that they didn’t like borscht, but we use tomato instead as our red soup.
Everyone finishes their soup and the next course, pierogi, is served. There are many many different versions of pierogi, but our family makes ’em with cabbage inside. The men get together early in the day, mix and roll out dough; shred and steam cabbage and form the little ravioli-like pouches. They are boiled until they float and served only with sauted onions.
And that’s it for the meal. After we clean up, we take out dessert which is usually Christmas cookies we’ve brought, and if we’ve been good, Santa comes! The kids open their gifts and then we all journey home, watching the skies for Rudolph’s light.
Our kids won’t touch cabbage in any form, so last night we mashed some potatoes and added some cheddar cheese for the filling. They gobbled them right up!
Here’s the dough recipe we used and will continue to use because it turned out perfect: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/12063/pierogi-dough/
“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.“
1 Corinthians 10:31