Winter Traditions

 Winter Traditions and Recipes

Latvian cuisine typically consists of agricultural products, with meat featuring in most main meal dishes. Fish is commonly consumed due to Latvia's location on the east coast of the Baltic Sea.

Latvian cuisine has been influenced by neighboring countries in the Baltic region.

Common ingredients in Latvian recipes are found locally, such as potatoes, wheat, barley, cabbage, onions, eggs and pork. Latvian food is generally quite fatty, and uses few spices.

 Meals

Contemporary Latvians usually eat three meals a day. Breakfast is normally light and usually consists of sandwiches or an omelette, with a drink, often milk. Lunch is eaten from noon to 3 p.m. and tends to be the main meal of the day; as such it can include a variety of foods, and sometimes also soup as an entree and a dessert. Supper is the last meal of the day, with some choosing to eat another large meal. Consumption of ready-made or frozen meals is now common.

 In the holiday of winter solstice, when the increase of lightday was marked, ate the special dishes. Many of these dishes are served up and now during celebration of Christmas in Latvia. A popular dish the boiled pork head was considered with the boiled pearlbarley, but presentlyon Christmas more often give the boiled grey peas with the pieces of the fried meat and fat bacon that it is necessary towash down the curdled milk (ruguspiens) or kefir.This dish the whole year round can be found in the menu of many restaurants and cafe of Latvia.

All peas cooked on Christmas, it is necessary to the morning to eat, otherwise many tears will be spilled in New Year. Other special Christmas dish the former is considered once popular blackpudding with a pearl-barley, because convolute a ringsausage reminds a circle symbolizing a sunny cycle. In the West of Latvia a traditional Christmas appetizer are sklandurausi (small baskets with filling from a potato and carrot). For the last 100 another custom that is Christmas stoveginger breads. The today most widespread Christmas dish a roast pig is considered with the stewed chouc route. On a today's festive table a dish is often present from a carp, and a fish scale is folded in purses and pockets, that New Year brought much money. On Latvian tradition on Christmas it is necessary to eat nine dishes, that a coming year was profitable, but now this ritual is observed very rarely.

Recipes

Grey Peas with Bacon

200 g (7oz) grey peas, 60g (2.1oz) smoked or unsmoked streaky bacon, 40g (1.4oz) onion, salt.

Soak peas, then cover with hot water and boil until tender. Dice bacon and onion and saute. Serve drained peas in individual clay bowls, adding fried bacon mixture to each serving. Serve with a drink of ruguspiens (curdled milk). Beans with fresh bacon are also prepared in this way.

Pork in Aspic

Ingredients:
1kg (2lb., 3oz) pork, 50g (1.75oz) flavouring vegetables (onion, carrot, parsley, celery), pepper, bay leaves, salt.

Choose meat from a young, relatively fatty piglet (knuckles and a piece of side or shoulder). Chop knuckles in half, cut up the side or shoulder. Wash all of the meat. Place in a saucepan and add cold water to cover meat. Cover saucepan and bring to the boil, skimming off any foam. Add peeled flavouring vegetables and salt, then simmer on low heat with the saucepan partly covered. Add pepper and bay leaves towards the end of cooking. Remove from flame when meat separates easily from the knuckles.

Remove meat from broth, separate from bone and cut into cubes. Strain broth, let it settle, and skim fat from the top. Rinse bowls in cold water. If you wish for the aspic to have a garlic flavour, add a clove of minced garlic to each bowl. Arrange boiled carrot and parsley in the bowls. Add meat and pour over broth. Place in a cool room to set. Before serving, upturn the pork in aspic on a shallow dish. Serve with vinegar, mustard and horseradish. Veal in aspic is prepared in the same way.

"Herring in a Jacket"
(Herring with vegetables)

1 salted herring, 150g (5.25oz) boiled vegetables (carrot, beetroot, green peas), 100g (3.5oz) sour cream, 10g (0.35oz) horseradish, salt, sugar to taste, spring onions.

Soak herring and peel off skin. Slice fillet into angled pieces. Dice vegetables and arrange to cover a fish plate in a slight mound. Arrange the pieces of herring on top of the mound with the points coming together in the centre. Mix sour cream, horseradish, salt and sugar and pour diagonally over the herring. Spread chopped spring onions. Cut hollow cone shapes from a boiled carrot to decorate the centre or one side of the dish.

Baked Pork Ribs
(with sauteed sauerkraut and boiled potatoes)

For 10 people:

1.5-2kg (3.2-4.3lb.) pork (the side, with ribs), 50g (1.75oz) onion, 50g (1.75oz) carrot, 25g (0.875oz) parsley, salt, ground pepper.

Make a series of 6-7 cm long cuts diagonally across ribs or cut membrane across each of the ribs, so that meat can be easily divided after roasting. Rub with salt and pepper and bake for 1 hour as you would a pork roast. If meat is fatty, remove skin and layer of fat. After baking, divide into portions (two ribs to each serve), place in a serving bowl, pour over the pan juices and serve with boiled potatoes.