by Easter eggs
My hand goes out to you, gentle readers, with wishes for a sunny, warm and happy Easter long weekend. Hauskaa Pääsiäistä, Joyeuses Pâques, Frohes Ostern, Happy Easter… if that is a tradition for you.
I like to think of it as a celebration of spring with daffodils and pussywillows and tender new green leaf buds. And of course, Easter eggs! Most of our treasured Easter egg collection has been made over the years by our daughters, especially the youngest. More photos of those Easter eggs: Easter 2006, Easter 2008
I am looking forward to seeing our granddaughters’ plant-dyed eggs, works in progress…
March 29, 2013 in Culture, Home, Human, Photoworks by Marja-Leena
Hauskaa Pääsiäistä! Muistakaa syödä mämmiä!
Marja-Leena, how would you describe what mämmi is? I recently heard that similar rye porridge, used as dessert, is also in use in Turkey and elsewhere in that region.
So it’s not only a Finnish peculiarity…
No, I will not eat myself round with it, but maybe one or two, maybe four servings.
They are pretty. Are they hard-boiled or blown?
Happy Easter!
Marjatta, I remember mämmi! I haven’t had it in decades, since I left home upon marrying. I liked it very much when my mother made it though it’s not pretty in looks. I didn’t know about the connection to the east, Persia it says at the link. Thanks for the information. Do you make it yourself or buy it ready-made?
Lucy, these two are blown but some of the others in the collection are hard-boiled. I found one had exploded, fortunately well-dried out after some years. Have you noticed how the hard-boiled ones wobble in one direction when set on the table?
It makes me happy to know your granddaughters are keeping up this fine tradition in making these very pretty eggs. It wasn’t until I was older that I learned to decorate Easter eggs in the eastern European batik style. When I was a child we used to save onion skins during late winter so we could use them to dye the eggs in different patterns.
I never much liked the business of blowing eggs so most of mine were always left whole. I think they wobble because the egg inside shrinks.
Happy Easter to you and yours, Marja-Leena.
Susan, thanks for the wishes. I’ve never really gotten into egg decorating or dyeing though I admire the Ukrainian ones. I just let my children have free rein. One method they used was coloured tissue papers, wetted and laid on the egg to make assorted interesting patterns.The above ones may have been done that way, along with the use of a bit of oil to create a random pattern or texture And I did not like blowing eggs either. I agree that the intriguing and weird wobble is caused by the dried egg inside.
Happy Easter to you too!
I think we will dye some eggs with flowers and onion skins this afternoon (so it’ll have to be onion soup for dinner tonight). How lovely to have a decoration that turns into a meal!
And maybe the jump from dining to flies is not a good one, but still I wanted to say your scans of the fly are completely incredible!!
Happy Easter, Marja-Leena! I haven’t had time to dye any eggs so it’s extra-nice to see these of yours! Have a lovely day tomorrow.
A perfect Marja-Leena greeting! We have a lot of family eggs, too–including a batch that smelled sulphurous for years… Potent, those eggs!
Easter Greetings. A new and season dimension to your hand images. Children will always love coloured eggs
Jodi, dyeing one’s eggs and eating them soon after is how we used to do it when I was young. We didn’t keep them the way our daughters started to do, which has made for this lovely permanent collection, in the pysanky tradition. (And a lot of omelettes).
Thanks for the kind words on my fly scans and for visiting. Hope the sun has arrived in your part of the world. We’ve has a glorious week and it looks good for another one – at last!
Beth, thank you, and same to you and J. I always enjoy your writings every year about your Holy Week activities – all that wonderful song! We didn’t have time to make any new eggs, though the grandchildren are doing so downstairs, building their own collection methinks.
Marly, you would recognize my hand by now, eh! it’s lovely to have creative children do all the work. We would throw out anything that smelled though. 🙂
Joe, it’s all for the children, isn’t it? I’m too lazy to do it for myself. Will you see your family for Easter?
That is a beautiful picture, i love the delicate colours of the eggs. Have a nice Easter, Marja-Leena! Leena
Leena, kiitos paljon!
Frohe Ostern, dearest Marja-Leena! Thank you for the egg photo and link to your daughter’s site. I’d never thought of using spinach! Here it’s a rainy morning. Thank goodness the easter egg hunts all took place in the sunshine yesterday. Long ago in my family, we would sort through the naturally brown eggs to choose the lightest ones to colour. I don’t remember seeing white eggs until we moved to the States.
Dear Rouchswalwe, I’m glad you enjoyed this post. Interesting about white eggs, isn’t it? Since going mostly organic we’ve been buying brown free-range. However yesterday, a trip was made to get white for dyeing! Youngest daughter took charge of helping her nieces dye and decorate the eggs.
I’m sorry to hear your weather is not Easterish but hope your day was still rich. It’s a gorgeous day here, the warmest yet, going to 19C (about 66 F), just perfect for an Easter egg hunt in the garden, then a brunch of, guess what? – egg bake to use up all the blown out egg contents!