How do we overcome the cleaving forces of geography and time — of death itself — to feel a sense of connection to our loved ones? Baking our family’s Slovak Easter bread helps me find strength and comfort in connection to loved ones.
My palms push the sweet, yeasty dough away from me, against the kitchen counter, then fold it back over and pull it toward me. Pushing and pulling, pressing and gathering. Over and over. With every motion, tension leaves my body for the mixture — making both better.
This rhythmic kneading of the bread dough with plump gold raisins for Slovak Easter bread comforts me. I rock through the motions, feeling the powerful transformation underway in my hands as a sloppy, shaggy mixture becomes an elastic, unified dough ready to rise.
Longing for connection led me to this ritual and hooked me. Baking bread is too time-consuming — until Easter, when this particular longing for connection tugs again, insisting I make time. My grandmother made this bread before Easter until she died in 1995.
My mom makes it every Good Friday and Christmas Eve. My uncle makes it. My cousin recalled it from childhood and asked for the recipe. Spread over multiple states, we sometimes trade pictures of the finished loaves.
How do we overcome the cleaving forces of geography and time — of death itself — to feel a sense of connection to our loved ones?
Tradition. Ritual. Connection.
My husband and stepsons hunt for deer, turkey and squirrels, walking the same narrow and twisted trails through the forest, climbing and descending ridges. They cook meals on the same patch of ground where my husband’s father, grandfather and great-grandfather gathered with the men in their hunting club. Camp time is sacred.
Me? I bake “pascha,” our family’s recipe for Slovak Easter bread.
In those five minutes of kneading, alchemy transforms the flour’s gluten into a structure for those lovely pockets and bubbles produced by the yeast. That’s the chemistry.
Through the movements, I feel better. Stronger and nourished. That’s the powerful magic of connection.
The bronzed, plump loaves speckled with gold raisins emerge from the oven hours later. A warm slice slathered with butter is heaven, a delight to share.
Spring 2020: Isolation and Anger
Truth be told, when I first made this bread in the spring of 2020, I was angry.
In the early weeks of the pandemic, that bread-baking trend swept past me like a parade. Charming and sweet — just not something I jumped into.
But then, a few days before Easter, I thought making it might help me feel better. I felt isolated and angry, sad, weary. I was overwhelmed with empathy for our kids. My younger stepson’s lost baseball season. My older stepson and daughter-in-law’s meticulous wedding planning thrown into shambles.
When families should have come together, they could not. We could not have our typical big family dinner for Easter. My mom was buttoned up in her house, and I in mine. Church was closed and so many of us struggled without our typical connections. Without hugs.
As Good Friday approached, I remembered how my mom made pascha when I was a kid in the little kitchen of the half-duplex we rented, listening to songs from Jesus Christ Superstar as she baked and cleaned before the holiday. When she visits me for Easter in Central Pennsylvania, she makes the bread in the little kitchen of the B&B where she and my stepdad stay.
My grandmother “Sweetie” was kind and tough, a badass who served as an Army nurse in World War II. Sweetie died 25 years ago. Many years have passed since sweet dreams of visiting and talking over life with her. But she is a powerful, nurturing force, still in my thoughts and heart. I especially think of her when I need to muster strength, like in those early weeks of the pandemic, when the world was upside-down, scary and I could not see or hug my mom.
Instead, I pounded the hell out of that bread dough and sent baked loaves out in Easter baskets to my in-laws and local family who would normally be at our holiday table.
“Scrumptious,” was my niece’s review and that pleased me.
(Read: I Believe in Infinite Love Above All Else ~ Some Thoughts on Faith.)
When you are separated from loved ones, perhaps the best way to cope is to make a cherished family recipe. Even better: One with the power to turn anguish into comfort and connection.
A Proper Paska
A year later, 2021, we had the medical miracle of vaccines. But we held off from our typical big family gathering for Easter. Again, I made the pascha and shared the baked loaves.
The bread is sweet and braided. Its origins are in Eastern Europe, and it’s likely a relative of challah or brioche.
“Pascha,” as our family calls it, is the Greek word for Easter. “Paska” is the word for Slovak Easter bread. Our family spelling is a mystery. Just one of those things.
I dove into my stash of cookbooks and the web, searching for the recipe’s origins and found a lot of similar recipes — but not yet one that exactly matches our family recipe. You’re likely to find versions of this bread wherever Eastern European immigrants settled in the US.
Perhaps that is part of our life’s mission, to find what helps us turn life’s darkness and raw ingredients into something that is beautiful and useful.
Symbolism and Ritual
This baker makes her “Paska,” Slovak Easter bread, in a round pan with the braids on top. The braids are said to symbolize the holy Trinity. In the “New York Times Heritage Cookbook” by Jean Hewitt (Random House, 1972) the recipe for Ukrainian Easter bread is a pretty close match, but adds lemon, cherries and walnuts.
This one, called “Vánocka” from the Czech Republic is for a braided brioche flavored with rum and lemon zest, raisins and almonds.
Vánocka is the Czech word for Christmas. The braids are said to symbolize baby Jesus snugly wrapped in cloth strips.
When you’re making Vanocka, according to Taste Atlas, it’s customary to jump up and down and think of dear friends and family while the dough is rising.
Maybe I’ll add that to my ritual. For me, the bread is more closely related to working through the darkness of Good Friday, and the coming transformation into the joy of Easter.
I pour my heartache, my losses, my sadness over all the cruelty and hatred remaining in this world into the bread dough and am rewarded by sweet, share-able loaves and the satisfaction of making order out of the mess of real life. Perhaps that is part of our life’s mission, to find what helps us turn life’s darkness and raw ingredients into something that is beautiful and useful.
This life will never be free from loss and heartbreak. We work through our grief, carry on, heal as best we can — and celebrate a source of connection wherever we find it.
Does your family have a cherished recipe? I’d love to hear about it. Please leave a comment below.
Share this story using the buttons on the right.
Subscribe below to receive stories by email.
Pascha
(Christmas and Easter Raisin Bread)
Mix 1 quart whole milk and 6T sugar and microwave for about 3 minutes.
Check temperature. At <120o add 1 large cake yeast.
Let sit for 10 minutes, allowing yeast to work.
Mix the following like a pie:
1 cup unsalted butter (room temperature)
1 T salt
6 cups flour
Add yeast mixture to flour mixture.
Add 1 T vanilla
Add 3 egg yolks (save whites)
Add 1 box white raisins
Mix well. Add additional flour until soft dough forms that can be turned out on floured surface. (In all, recipe may take almost a bag of flour!)
Knead dough until smooth. Raise in a warm place until doubled. Punch down and let rise again until doubled.
Divide dough into five parts. Divide each part into three. Roll each piece into long shape and braid. Put in greased loaf pan.
Cover with towel and allow dough to rise again.
Beat reserved egg whites and brush on top of each loaf.
Bake at 350o for 45 min.
