Like any abiding Christian Orthodox, grandma spent the week leading up to Easter cooking as if an army was expected for lunch (her immediate family consists of two daughters, one son-in-law and the world's most beloved granddaughter — me!). For this modest ensemble of people, Grandma dyed on average between 50 and 100 eggs every year.
Over 17 years in Australia, I never dyed eggs. Until last year, that is, when travel bans brought my homesickness and sense of cultural isolation to a whole new level.
I miss Romanian food almost exclusively based on the nostalgia (and stories) that flavours, aromas and traditions bring back to my mind. These stories, and new ones of our own making, I'd love to pass on to my almost 4-year-old daughter.
Every year, back in Vadu, a small village of only about one hundred families on the Black Sea coast of Romania, grandma would fill a huge pot with boiling dye, and the room would fill with the smell of dye, sulphur from eggs and Easter excitement.
Come Easter Sunday, each one of us (and any guest that happened to pass by) was equipped with a dyed egg, ready for a competitive game of Easter egg knocking. Do you know this game?
Egg dying feels like a way to connect to the traditions I grew up with. Source: Supplied
You need two people and two dyed eggs. One person holds one dyed egg (there are ways to hold it to turn the odds in your favour — most of the egg nested in my fist usually works for me). The other person uses the top of their egg (try the sharpest end) to knock the other egg. Whoever's egg doesn't crack wins (and with it, the likelihood of a very lucky year). It's fun and playful and in my experience, it makes boiled eggs taste even better.
A ROMANIAN EASTER
Plăcintă: the Romanian Easter pie devoured since ancient times
There was also another competition, this one of my own secret making: Easter egg decorating. Every household had its own signature egg dyeing. Some dyed their eggs in a tie-dye rainbow manner, others chose less traditional colours (like purple), and some even added stickers to the shell — not high on my hierarchy of egg decorations.
We were one of the traditional dye households and that broke my heart a little bit every year. More so when grandma would go for red dye only, and completely skip the other colours. Ah, the disappointment of a mono-coloured basketful of eggs.
When Grandma's sister, my great auntie Veta stayed with us for Easter, Grandma was more likely to expand her dye repertoire, and those were my favourite times. Then, she'd even take the time to use parsley (and a cut-up piece of silk stocking) to imprint a leaf pattern on the eggs.
Egg dyeing feels like a way to connect to the traditions I grew up with, to the kid in me, to my grandmother. And a way to connect my very Australian child to a part of her identity and inherited culture.
A game of competitive egg knocking brings back that Easter feeling. Source: Alex Chubaty
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Hand-dyed Easter eggs
Alex Chubaty agrees. Alex started decorating eggs with textas as a child, along with her artist father, while her mother busied preparing traditional Ukrainian Easter dishes. Later she graduated to use dyes and wax, and this is what she still uses today, albeit with much more skill, to create pysanki, the exquisite Ukrainian works of art on an egg medium.
"It's my most regular connection with my culture. I can't imagine not doing it," says Alex, who can spend half a day minutely decorating just one egg.
It's my most regular connection with my culture. I can't imagine not doing it.
It's that connection that I want to nurture in my daughter too.
Last year we were meant to take our daughter on a six-month cultural immersion. She was going to learn Romanian, knock and eat Easter eggs, and get squeezed in not-exactly-consensual hugs by loving relatives. And this way, become a little bit more Romanian.
We hope to move the plan to this year, but travel remains a dream for the foreseeable future. I feel homesick, yes, but also worried that my daughter is growing up without early memories of egg knocking, without clear egg-dye preferences. And what a loss that is. So, it's up to me to bring them back here, to her Australian home.
This year, I plan for her to mix the dye with her Peppa Pig cooking spoon, and we'll decorate using parsley leaves (I bought some new socks just for the occasion). I also intend to win every egg-knocking game and thus secure a year of abundant luck.
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