The traditional Christmas Eve meal consists of twelve
dishes, honouring the twelve apostles. Exactly which dishes are served can vary from region to region and even family to family, but we'll look at some common ones here. Note that there are many ways to spell the names of dishes, translated into the Latin alphabet.
Kutia is the traditional first dish of the meal, a kind of
made from wheat and sweetened with
.
, a beet soup and probably the most famous Ukrainian dish to non-Ukrainians, will also appear.
, also known as pierogi, are a favourite
, which for this meal may be made with cabbage.
Holubtsi, or
rolls will for this meal be filled with
and some vegetables, maybe mushrooms and carrots. The sauce for these is usually
based. Another sauce you will see on the table might be Pidpenky, which is
based.
is the beautiful festive braided bread that adorns the table. You are also likely to see
, another yeast product that may be either baked or fried. These little rolls can be sweet or savoury.
Although you will traditionally not see dairy products at this meal, you may see some
, prepared in a variety of ways, possibly jellied in aspic. And of course there must be a special drink, which might be
, a kind of fruit compote. We can end our meal with
, a layered sweet pastry.
