| RusCuisine.com | By Olga Timokhina recipes@ruscuisine.com |
| A new recipe in your mailbox twice a week | Dec,29 2005 |
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Dear friends! I am sending you my best wishes of Happy New Year! Be happy and optimistic! Happy New YearIngredients:The biggest holiday in Russia is New Year. I think, I must begin from Peter The Great, it was his decree to celebrate New Year on 1 Jan and put a fir- or pine-trees or branches at home, decorate them with toys and lights, and make a great feast. We put New Year Tree a week before the holiday. It is usually decorated with lights, glass toys and balls, sweets and little tangerines. There are two principal characters of New Year, Father Frost (he looks almost like Santa Claus) with a big red sack full of presents and his granddaughter Snowmaiden (she usually wears light blue dress and a little hat). Father Frost is a very serious, strict, but kind and just. He has a deep voice. Little kids venerate for him. Father Frost can punish any evildoer by freezing him. Snowmaiden is a young girl, who loves and protect all animals. She cares about any creature. There are little Father Frost and Snowmaiden under the Tree. People usually put sweets and fruits and carnival masks there. I have never had New Year without Tree. It has always been a very tall (up to the ceiling) beautiful fir. We played many different games with Tree. For example, "Find me ...". Someone orders you a toy (clock, icicle, house etc.) and you must find it on the Tree as many as possible. If you haven't found all the pieces, change the roles. Children attend New Year parties at school and other places. At first they watch a performance with many fairy tales and cartoons personages, where "bad guys" like Baba Yaga (an old woman with a big nose and terrible hair who lives in a little house in the forest that can fly, she eats kids and braves and does many bad things to people) kidnap Snowmaiden and "good guys" like Father Frost, different animals and Snowflakes save her. Of course, the show has a happy end. Every year there are new variations with new heroes, but the essential idea is the same. After that kids dance around New Year Tree, sing songs, tell rhymes to Father Frost and he gives presents to the best ones. Children attend as many as possible such parties and get presents. Usual present is a pack of sweets and chocolates. Now we go to the kitchen on 31 Dec. The table must be crammed with dishes. There is a sign - how New Year is celebrated, all the year will be in this way. So people try to put all possible and impossible on the table ;-) We cook as a rule about 8-10 different salads, sandwiches, preservings. The main dish is potatoes and meat (it can be young pig, or chicken, or turkey, or goose). As to beverages, all range is on the table, but champagne is obligatory. It is a family holiday, but we often invite friends and relatives, as it is boring to be for two or three. People sit down at the table at eleven p.m. "to tell Good Bye to this year", they recall all good and bad in this year and eat and drink a little. At a quarter to twelve, everyone turn on TV and listen to the president and after that the tower clock on the Red Square begins to strike. The champagne is opened and we hold glasses and with clock strikes we make a wish. Then we wish "Happy New Year" to everyone and kiss each other. And after that people drink, eat, dance and have fun till the morning. I never could be up so long. My record is to go to bed at 5 a.m. I almost forgot about presents. Kids find their presents under the Tree, sometimes Father Frost "visits" them and gives the presents himself. Kids receive their best presents about which they dream day and night at home. The adults manage without middlemen ;-) To tell you the truth, people don't eat a lot during this night and all salads can be eaten during some next days. If some of the units look unfamiliar to you, click here for conversion tools Bon Appetit! |
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