Pisanki (Polish painted Easter eggs) comes from the Polish word “pisać”, which means to write. Originating as a pagan tradition, pisanki were absorbed by Christianity to become the traditional Easter eggs. Pisanki are now considered to symbolise the revival of nature and the hope that Christians gain from faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Coloring Easter eggs is very much alive in Poland today as well as enjoyed by Polish people all over the world. There are different techniques, some of them are very simple, some are more time consuming. But they are all a lot of fun!

My personal favorite was always coloring eggs with all natural items, like plants for example. The very popular way of coloring eggs in Poland is boiling them in onion skins. They come out absolutely beautiful! They are different shades of brown or brick red…not perfect, they can have different shades on them, but that’s what makes them so beautiful and unique:)

Image courtesy Pixabay.com

Image courtesy Pixabay.com

A lot of times we would scrape a design on them, which I guess would make them “skrobanki” (“skrobać” means “to scrape”). You could scrape patterns, animals, trees, flowers… This was definitely a lot of work, but they came out pretty!

Image courtesy Pixabay.com

Of course sometimes we would just use regular food coloring and make them pretty rainbow colors!

Image courtesy Pixabay.com

All the eggs were put in a basket, along with sausage, bread, butter, salt, pepper and a pice of cake and brought to the church for the blessing of the Easter basket on Saturday. Next day we were able to eat all blessed food, along with all the other Easter breakfast dishes!

Wesołych Świąt Wielkanocnych! Happy Easter!