What a fine crop of pumpkins! Is Halloween celebrated in Belarus with pumpkin carving? Are these used in cooking (pies, other dishes)? Will be interesting to learn from you how All Saints and All Souls are observed. Thank you, John.
Pumpkins are an important part of the Belarusian fall and winter diet, used in soups, kasha, and other dishes. Pumpkins are also used as feed for farmyard animals (ducks, geese, and especially hogs in their final fattening-up period).
Halloween is not celebrated as such, and indeed is sharply criticized as anti-Christian by all branches of our faith. All Saints’ day is strongly celebrated, All Souls’ Day (Дзяды – “Dzjady“) perhaps even more so. The latter, especially for Roman Catholics, is one of the the most important days of the year for honoring one’s forebears in ceremonies (marked by some pre-Christian elements) at home.
Thank you, John. Very informative. All Souls and Halloween tend to get rolled together in South Texas as Dia de los Muertos. The imagery sometimes tends to the macabre but the original impetus indeed is honoring (and welcoming back) the ancestors.
Had some great pumpkin soup in Port Arthur Texas, cooked by Tex-Vietnamese residents there. But they were using something more like orange squash, not these immense and beautiful pumpkins.
What a fine crop of pumpkins! Is Halloween celebrated in Belarus with pumpkin carving? Are these used in cooking (pies, other dishes)? Will be interesting to learn from you how All Saints and All Souls are observed. Thank you, John.
Julie, many thanks for your comment.
Pumpkins are an important part of the Belarusian fall and winter diet, used in soups, kasha, and other dishes. Pumpkins are also used as feed for farmyard animals (ducks, geese, and especially hogs in their final fattening-up period).
Halloween is not celebrated as such, and indeed is sharply criticized as anti-Christian by all branches of our faith. All Saints’ day is strongly celebrated, All Souls’ Day (Дзяды – “Dzjady“) perhaps even more so. The latter, especially for Roman Catholics, is one of the the most important days of the year for honoring one’s forebears in ceremonies (marked by some pre-Christian elements) at home.
Thank you, John. Very informative. All Souls and Halloween tend to get rolled together in South Texas as Dia de los Muertos. The imagery sometimes tends to the macabre but the original impetus indeed is honoring (and welcoming back) the ancestors.
Had some great pumpkin soup in Port Arthur Texas, cooked by Tex-Vietnamese residents there. But they were using something more like orange squash, not these immense and beautiful pumpkins.