...on
THIS THREAD I posted some pix of my winter-time faves,
tourtière and
feves au lard - Meat pies and baked beans of a style from the Saguenay / Lake St Jean region of Quebec.
My sweetie's family is Lithuanian, and they have some unusual traditions - such as the Christmas Eve meal is very small, and vegetarian.
More info here:
http://www.javlb.org/educat/tradicijos/kucios.htmlThe focus is on the abject poverty of the Holy Family, having no money to stay at an inn, and no one to take them in, so they end up with a bunch of beasts (which tend to be vegetarians.) So like in Lent, you temporarily give up or abstain from all the GOOD STUFF - that's for Christmas and its TWELVE DAYS ... (...you *do* party all 12 days, don't you?!?)
One of the most alien looking traditional treats I've seen is the Lithuanian
sakotis also called
raguolis, or 'tree cake." It's a hollow cylinder with spiky things radiating from it. Pictures below:
![](https://www.kumoricon.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.lrytas.lt%2Fpagamintalietuvoje%2Ffiles%2F2010%2F05%2Fsakotis.jpg&hash=b367c7bb5b7786b02a94656b5549480173f94892)
![](https://www.kumoricon.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.olitve.ru%2F_mod_files%2Fce_images%2Fphotoalbum%2Fgenerated%2Fsakotis_400x300_pc.jpg&hash=f5b641ab4199e410ee54a943d4f63b6b7d8946c9)
The batter is poured out onto a rotating spit in front of a specially shaped oven, so as it drips it forms the radial spikes.These can also be made quite tall, even 5 feet high and more, and they are also served at weddings and other festive occasions. They taste a bit like shortbread.