Estonian National Cuisine

Black Bread

The word „bread“ came to Estonian from Germanic languages. The traditional black bread spreaded in the second century. In peasant proprator people usually baked bread on Saturdays.

Depending on the size of the family, they usually made 6-10 loaves of bread. One loaf of bread usually weighed about 2-5 kg.

Recipe of Bread 5 l of warm water 100 g leaven kg rye flour 1 soup-spoon of salt 2 soup-spoons of fennel seeds

Belives and habits There were many belives and habits related with bread: –Dropped piece of bread was picked up and kissed, so that the starvation would not come to the house. –Bread was never put on tabel pinned. That would predict a familymembers death. –It was censored to lay a loaf of bread with its cutopen side to the door, because then the house would run out of bread. –People drawed a cross on bread before they baked it, because it would protect the family from the evil eye. –Eating the end of the bread would give a girl nice breasts. –Warm bread was suposted to be broken not cut.

Christmas bread Christmas bread had to be different from the everyday breads. It was made out of rye- or wheatflour and it was usually in the shape of a lying pig. Christmas bread was also fed to the animals in the stables

Kama (flour mix) Kama is boiled, dried and coarse-grained fluor, mixed with water, buttermilk or yoghourt. Kamafluor was initally made at home after sowing the seeds, from the rest of the grain.

Nowadays kama is popular summerfood because it is cooling and appeasing. Because of its taste and salubrity kama can be compared with muesli.

Estonian Fish Culture

The Baltic Herring Baltic herring has been the main fish dish on Estonian table for centuries. It’s the main fish that is caught in the Baltic Sea.

The Baltic herring became national fish of Estonia. The Baltic herring is eaten as fresh, marinaded, smoked and tinned.

Sprat A sprat sandwich is a traditional snack on estonian food table. Sprats are usually salted with all kinds of spices.

A sprat sandwich: black bread salted sprats boiled eggs All you have to do now is just make a sandwich.

Pork

Pork has been known in the national kitchen of Estonia for a long time. Meat was eaten mostly in autumn and in winter with vegetables and cereal.

Belives and habits: –Pigtail was kept until spring and it was given to styesower with soup. By doing that people belived that stye will grow longer. –Pigs nose meat was given to a cild, because people belived that it helps the child to become a writer. –Eating a heart gives strengh. –Kidneys were boiled in soup and were eaten with somebody else to get long with. These traditions are old and mostly lost, but pork is on a very important place on an Estonian foodtable.

Jellied meat In Estonian sült. A traditional Estonian dish - boiled pork with vegetables in jelly. The jelly is made by boiling the pork bones, sometimes hooves and heads. Estonians eat jellied meat at Christmas time, Shrove Tuesday, New Years Eve and Easter.

Milk

Milk is called “piim” in Estonian Over the times Estonians have been drinking and using milk (mostly cowmilk but also horse and goat milk) as everyday food.

The development of Estonian milk industry began in the 19th century. Nowadays it is one of the most important lines of production in Estonian farming.

Nearly 93% of the drinking milk produced and consumed in Estonia has a fat content of 2.5% what is unique in EU. The 2.5% milk can only be marketed in Estonia.

Milk production started in farms. Metal milk jug was used to collect milk from farms. Piimapukk is a simple wooden construction. Farmers brought their milk jugs there for collecting and selling the milk.

Soured milk Soured milk is called hapupiim in Estonian Soured milk is a general term for milk that has acquired a tart taste through bacterial fermentation

Soured milk has been a common drink among Estonians for centuries. Nowadays people drink mostly kefir which is a fermented milk drink similar with soured milk.

Curd Curd is made from sour milk by heating it on a low temperature. Curd is a popular diet food because of its high calcium and phosphorus containing and low energetic value.

Curd might be flavoured with salt or sugar and it is used in many different dishes like curd cheese patties.

Curd snack Curd snack is about five centimeters long sweet snack. It is made of milled sweet curd or curd cream and covered usually with chocolade glaze.

Different types may contain fillings like jam, marmalade or raisins. Curd snack has been Estonians preferred sweet since 1960, when it was known as glazed sweet cheese.