Most Amusing Finnish Easter Dishes

Time flies quickly and the Easter is already next week! I’ve realized that I haven’t written anything yet about Easter celebrations in Finland. Out of all traditions, Easter food seems the most interesting to me, so here is the top 3 dishes that I find amusing.

Fazer Mignon Egg

To my mind, this is the most peculiar Easter egg ever ☺

Photo source: fazer.fi

Fazer is the famous Finnish brand offering bakery, confectionery, biscuits and many other food and sweets. Fazer Mignon Egg is the Easter specialty that is made from a chicken egg – egg’s content is taken out and the shell is filled with a sweet and tasty nougat. Yammy!

Photo source: news.cision.fi

Originally, it was Karl Fazer who came up with the idea of Mignon Egg, while on his business trip to Germany. The first Mignon Eggs were produced in 1896. They are still handmade, which is quite amazing at our modern times. You can paint it or decorate it in any way you like. Really amazing and unique way to celebrate Easter, I think ☺

Mämmi

Only a lazy foreigner didn’t write about mämmi, but here are my five cents ☺ It’s the most original Finnish Easter dish, which is made from water, rye flour and malted rye. The first mentioning of mämmi is dated back to 17th century, when Finland was part of the Swedish kingdom. Back then this dessert was common in southwestern part of Finland and was attributable to catholic traditions. In 1900s this dish became common in other parts of Finland too.

Photo source: yle.fi / Arja Lento

Usually, mämmi is served with vanilla sauce, some cream or ice cream. I have to confess I haven’t tried mämmi yet. Partly, it’s because we travelled during the Easter break, but partly is I can’t persuade myself that it’s tasty ☺ One of my colleagues suggested I try the mämmi mud cake, and I actually liked the idea. Let’s see how it goes ☺

Pasha

Pasha is a dish that is very traditional for the Orthodox Church. It’s made from cottage cheese and it usually has a pyramid shape.

Photo source: kotiliesi.fi

Pasha came to Finland from Russia, originally “spread” to the Karelia, and from 1970 it became quite common also in other parts of Finland.

Interestingly enough, in Kazakhstan, where I’m from, “pasha” is a name of the special Easter bread. When I noticed pasha sold in Finnish stores, I thought that this is maybe a borrowed Russian word with a meaning that got transformed over the time. There are quite few words in Finnish that went trough that path. Take safka, for example. Originally, it comes from the Russian “zavtrak”, which means “breakfast”. In Helsinki slang “safka” means “food”.

However, while looking for materials for this post, I found out that apparently in the Central Russia pasha is a cottage cheese dessert, but in the South of Russia and in some other countries (for example, in Ukraine, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, and apparently in Kazakhstan) it means the special type of bread. Always learn something new ☺

Hope you enjoyed this post. Have a good Easter, everyone!