Russian kitchen. Pancake week and pancakes

Russian kitchen. Pancake week and pancakes

Shrovetide is a holiday that has come to us since pagan times, it is a rite of farewell to winter. The Pancake week was perceived by the Christian church as a religious holiday and was called the Cheese or Cheese Week, but this did not change its inner essence. She manages seven weeks before Easter and falls on the period from late February to early March. Shrovetide everywhere was expected with great impatience. This is the most fun, most reckless and truly universal holiday.

Shrovetide was greeted on Monday, a wide Shrovetide began on Thursday - on that day it was customary to clean the house and wash (in Russia they did not wash often). Friday - "mother-in-law of the evening", on this day the son-in-law went to the mother-in-law for pancakes. On Saturday - "sister-in-law gatherings", women invited their husband's sisters to visit. The most important day of Shrovetide week was Sunday - the charm before the beginning of Lent. In Russia, this day was called Forgiveness Sunday, when close people asked each other for forgiveness for all the insults and troubles caused to him.

The main episode of the last day was the seeing off of Shrovetide, often accompanied by the lighting of bonfires. In Russia, by this day, they had made a Shrovetide Carnival stuffed out of straw or rags, dressed them in women's clothing, carried it through the whole village, sometimes putting the scarecrow on a wheel stuck on top of a pole. Having gone out of the village, a scarecrow was either drowned in an ice hole, or burned, or simply torn to pieces, and the remaining straw was scattered across the field. Sometimes, instead of a doll, a live Pancake week was taken around the village: a smartly dressed girl or woman, an old woman or even an old man — a drunkard in a rash. Then, screaming and hooting, they were taken out of the village and planted or dumped there in the snow (Shrovetide was escorted).

In the same places where the stuffed Maslenitsa was not made, bonfires were burned on a hill beyond the village or by the river. In addition to firewood, all kinds of junk were thrown into bonfires - bast shoes, harrows, wallets, brooms, barrels and other unnecessary things, previously collected by children throughout the village, and sometimes stolen specially for this. Sometimes a wheel or pancake was burned in a fire, a symbol of the sun, associated with the approaching spring.
During the Shrovetide, a man takes his soul before a heavy and prolonged Lent. The main meal at Shrovetide was pancakes, a symbol of the sun.

“Damn round, like a real generous sun. The pancake is red and hot, like the hot all-warming sun, the pancake is watered with vegetable oil - this is a recollection of the sacrifices made to powerful stone idols. Pancake is a symbol of the sun, red days, good harvests, good marriages and healthy children ”- this is how the Russian writer A.I. wrote about pancakes Kuprin.

Useful Tips:
Pancake yeast must always be fresh. It is important that there are as many as necessary, but not in excess.

Pancake dough at all stages must be thoroughly kneaded, lumps in it are completely unacceptable.

The pan on which the pancakes are baked is best lubricated with oil as follows: put half of the onion or potato on the fork. Dip it in vegetable oil and grease the pan. Usually the pancake is fried on both sides in 2 minutes.

Before kneading the dough, sift the flour, so it is cleaned and enriched with oxygen, necessary for fermentation.

Do not overdo it with salt and sugar, put exactly according to the recipe. The salted dough wanders poorly, and the pancake turns pale. From the excess sugar, the dough becomes hard.

If you breed flour for pancakes in salt water, there will be no lumps.

First, sprinkle the pancake frying pan with salt, wipe it with a rag, and only then pour oil and dough.

If bubbles form in the middle of the pancake, the dough is not finished: put it in warm water for a while. If the pancake breaks when you turn it over, add the flour and egg.

It is convenient to fry pancakes in 2 pans when the third is on low heat. Fold the pancakes into it and grease with warmed butter. The stack can be turned over from time to time, then by the time the last pancake is ready, the first one will not have time to cool.

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