Some women in Lithuania’s Ukmergė district have started preparing for this year’s Easter well in advance. However, the treats they have prepared are not for tasting but for drawing attention to the traditional Easter dishes, as they are made out of wool.
Members of a crafts club in the small town of Deltuva in the Ukmergė district decided to prepare the Easter table in an unconventional way.
“We bought those products and tried to replicate them using wool. It has never been done before, so we were the first to do it,” says Daiva Stimburienė, events organiser at the Deltuva Culture Centre.
“We paid attention to the old traditions, read about the Easter dishes on the tables of our parents and grandparents table, and we made the felt dishes based on that,” she adds.
The women of Deltuva have been preparing the felt dishes for three months. According to Danutė, one of the members of the club, it takes up to an hour to cook salmon at home, and making the felt one took her two days.
“I had to make the onions, the lemon, and the salmon itself. However, the eggs were the most difficult to work with. We wanted the decoration to look as realistic as possible and to reflect the Easter mood. It required a lot of diligence,” Danutė says.
Some women chose to make felt dishes reflecting their profession. For example, a pastry chef Stanislava made a felt cake, which took her two weeks.
“A real cake takes a day to make and another day to decorate. But both real and felt cakes require a lot of attention to detail and patience,” she explains.
Some women recreated the festive dishes from childhood memories, while others tried to portray modern traditions. According to them, therefore, their felt Easter table depicts the culinary traditions of two generations.
“Is it even an Easter feast without desserts? As my grandmother used to say, if there are not five cakes on the table, it is not Easter. There is also šakotis [traditional Lithuanian tree cake], as there should be,” Stimburienė says.
“It was the first time for all of us making felt dishes. And the result is really beyond our expectations,” she shares.
The exhibition Felt Easter Treats will be open at the Deltuva Culture Centre in the Ukmergė district until April 21.
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