Photography

Bucovina – food, tradition, family

Gabriela Lupu

bucovina

The people of Bucovina are famous for their hospitality. They consider it an honor to open the door of their house to everybody.

bucovina

We kept intact, among traditions and customs, the culinary identity which, together with monasteries and landscapes, represents an attraction point.

plesa village

The Bucovinean recipes are well kept in each family and are transmitted to the followers with great care, as if telling them to other persons would lead to their loss, to the loss of their quality. Its great taste is also due to the traditional tools used for cooking which keep intact the natural taste and did not alter it: wood spoons, wood tray, tin kettle, ceramic dishes.

bucovina village

Prepared merely with natural ingredients -usually from our own courtyards, the Bucovinean foods are made not only to calm your hunger but also to wake up your senses so you can ,,see” their taste and ,,feel” their aspect.

bucovina

The best traditional dishes are served – mămăligă (maize polenta) with fresh cheese and cream, eggs, pork sausages, sarmale (cabbage or vine leaves stuffed with meat and rice), yoghurt, soup or răcituri (jellied meat). Nearly all food is heavy, and digestion is helped with a glass of ţuica (plum brandy). It is a very strong drink and is often drunk from the same glass by everybody at the table.

food Christmas

We grew up eating everyday various soups and borş (soup soured with fermented husk of wheat) and for commemorating the dead we have colivă, a patty-like cake which is a thick mixture of boiled wheat grain.

soup

Easter celebration always brings together a lot of traditions, partially religious, partially pagan, which are respected especially in the rural areas from Bucovina. It brings a wide range of Bucovinean foods: “ Pasca ” (made from leaven, covered with a mixture of beef cheese, cream, eggs and sugar, decorated with a leaven cross and baked in round tray),  “cozonac” which is made of a sheet of the same dough, covered with nuts, rolled and baked in a high tin and the lamb steak. You will also have the red eggs and the traditional painted ones.

poppy seeds bread

pasca

Easter eggs

Christmas is one of the most important holiday for us. The time of folk holidays is a time filled with magical – religious practices, rituals and ceremonies, with prohibitions and superstitions.  The Carols complete the festive atmosphere of Bucovina’s villages, being usually taken up also in the urban areas. The children are the first to start the carols.

wild strawberries with sour cream

The Bucovinean Christmas ‘ eve keeps the idea of preparing twelve types of fasting food (boiled and grinded wheat, smoked and boiled prune, boiled bean, grouts stuffed cabbage, chopped mushrooms with garlic, mushroom borsch, boiled beam and “sleita”), as well as fish food.

mushrroms

On the Christmas table we surely find: stuffed cabbage in cream nest, pork sausages with red beets and horseradish, trout in fir-three branches, chicken soup with homemade noodles, vegetable stew with chicken or beef meat, pork stew (a traditional dish consisting in a combination of roasted pork sausages, roasted pork chop, sheep cheese, polenta), polenta (peasant’s bread), with beef, sheep or goat cheese, on which it is added bacon and a glass of plum brandy, chicken steak with mushrooms, mushrooms pancakes, mushrooms vegetable stew and mushroom salad with peppers. For the dessert, the most famous is the Christmas cake,”poale’n brau” pies, pancakes or cheese donuts.

We have a wide variety of alcoholic aperitifs: cherry wine, blueberry wine, raspberry brandy.

GAB_6030_res_mix GAB_7842_res_mix Christmas food

 

 

Published by Gabriela Lupu

Hi. My name is Gabi and I am a professional photographer, a new mom and a wife. I wanna learn to cook healthy food for my little one, so I made this blog to share my cooking experiments with everyone. It's gone be a long and a bumpy ride but a funny one, so stay tune for news and enjoy my ride.

82 thoughts on “Bucovina – food, tradition, family”

  4. I have been in RM Valcea over a month now and have tasted almost everything you have mentioned. Lovely food, traditions and people. Great summary of the favorite dishes.

    Reply

  11. This was a beautiful post! My husband’s family is from Romania but not from the are you describe. I have made a point of learning many folk dishes from my mother-in-law and other relatives to keep the heritage alive for my children. I am a huge fan of heirloom cooking 🙂

    Reply

  12. It all sounds wonderful! I love reading about and trying new foods (and drinks!) If there was one thing that I’d definitely have to try, what would it be?

    Reply

  14. I cannot wait to go home and have some Romanian food. Those photos look amazing and you just made me crave some right now:))
    Love your blog.

    Reply

  24. Wow! I really enjoyed your post and felt like I was over in Romania with you and trying all these amazing foods. Thanks for popping round to my blog too. Take care and hope you have a great weekend and you get some photography done!
    xx Rowena

    Reply

  32. Your photographs fondly reminded me of the years I worked and lived in Romania on a joint venture there. The beauty of your photographs is that they simulate all the senses, not just sight. They also stimulate the imagination.Thank you for sharing your beautiful images.

    Reply

  36. Do you make ciorba du perisoare? I knew an amazing woman who could make this. I even learned to make it myself, using ground chicken for the perisoare instead of pork.

    But that was over a decade ago. I don’t even know where to buy lovage, much less remember the recipe well…..

    Reply
  41. Pingback: BUCOVINA HAPPY BIRTHDAY! – Cooking Without Limits

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