Day 13 - Light

Today is Saint Lucia's day! Lucia means light, and Lucia's traditions are a very lovely blend of light, food, and song.

This is a tradition I did not grow up with, but wish I did. Though Lucia was Italian, the traditions that I am aware of are Swedish. I first heard of St. Lucia Day from my friend Jennifer. As I understand it, the eldest daughter of the family rises early, dresses in a long white robe and a crown of candles, and brings the other family members breakfast in bed, while singing the Lucia song. Now, if it were not for the fact that I have since heard about these traditions from other sources, I would suspect that Jennifer's parents had come up with this on their own in a stroke of pure parenting genius.

But no, I did a little research and it seems that the Swedes and other Scandinavians came up with this brilliant tradition. Every description I read about the Lucias described them as carrying trays of "steaming coffee and saffron buns" to members of the family, a phrase which made me very hungry. So today I present the first culinary project of the month: Lussebullar . I have no idea if this recipe is authentic. I'd love to get some recipes from others who actually grew up celebrating Saint Lucia.

Authentic or not, its a pretty good recipe. Here the buns have been formed into "S" shapes with raisins tucked in to resemble eyes. (Lucia is also a patron of sight, or blindness, I think).

I suppose these days it might be considered dangerous to dress your kids in long, flammable robes, place fire on their heads, and give them trays of steaming liquid to carry around while half-asleep. But its a lovely tradition, and if you have young children, perhaps its one you want to introduce in your family.

p.s. If you don't want to cook there is nice tutorial here for beautiful Lucia dolls by Alicia of Posie.