Easter Eggs

The most prominent Latvian Easter tradition is to dye eggs with natural ingredients – onion skins, parsley, frozen or preserved blueberries and blackberries, grass, leaves, rice, you name it, it probably has been attached to an egg at some point.

I have made a quick video to give an intro into egg dyeing Latvian way. Take it as an inspiration and dare to experiment!

You will need:

• eggs –  preferably white or duck eggs, but it works for brown eggs too
• cotton cloth – old sheet or T-shirt cut in 15cm squares will do the trick
• onion skins – start collecting them in January or raid the local greengrocer
• bilberry, blueberry or blackberry jam or frozen berries
• parsley, coriander, other leaves and herbs – to add patterns and green colour
• rice, string, other small shapes – to create patterns
• string – to seal the egg parcels

Once you’ve wrapped the eggs, put them in a pot, cover with water and boil for 15 minutes at least. Remove from heat, run under cold water and unwrap. Be careful, inside of the parcels will still be very hot. Use a bit of butter, oil or lard to add shine to the eggs once they have cooled.

A pro tip: if you want to see who made which egg, wrap the egg parcels with different colour threads – one colour per person!

Some ideas how to use your Easter eggs are in this article.