During my childhood, my mom was good at keeping traditions. Especially
at Christmas. Certain Christmas cookies were made every year: Pfeffernusse, Viennese
Nut Cookies, sugar cookies, candy cane cookies, gingerbread. My dad did the
candy making: Divinity, chocolate fudge, and rocky road.
For a household that rarely ate desserts, Christmas was a
real celebration of sugar!
In my teen years Mom began baking a morning sweet bread called
Potica, which she read was from Yugoslavia. When our Bosnian friends stayed with us in the 90s, though, they’d
never heard of Potica, so I’m not sure…
Over the years here I have kept many of these culinary
traditions. Potica is one of them, and today is the day. I’ll make it today and
then freeze the two sweet bread rings for Christmas and new year.
It was one thing making Potica in warm southern California,
where yeast could stretch and grow in the heat. In a Northeastern Scottish December,
in my cold home, it is a challenge to get it to rise, but the last few years I’ve
made use of the bread-maker to get the dough started, and that has undoubtedly
helped. As long as I can remember how I did it last year …
Traditions are touchstones with the past, tunnels into times
of laughter and love with people who may no longer be here. Traditions can draw
us to recollect truths about who we are.
The godfather of tradition is God. He calls his people to remember
all the times he has been involved in their lives and salvation in startling ways,
and he establishes traditions to help the memories revive. Passover and other
festivals on the Jewish calendar. The bread and the wine on the Christian
calendar. They reveal the unconditional love of Father God for his children.
Not all tradition is so profound of course, so my prayer is
that those traditions which really matter I will embrace with love and
enthusiasm, and that those which have become a chore performed out of a sense
of duty or perceived expectation, I will drop.
So far, I’m still finding joy in producing potica, so here
goes.
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