Lithuanian food

The Portrait of the Silence by Tomas Karkalas, Lithuania

This fruit didn’t grow in Lithuania but colonizes my table . It means, the shop that is located just across the street occupied my home. In other words, it became hard to talk about any “national dishes” today. Our kitchens became international, and the talking about specific features mark the ethnography but not what we are eating indeed. In spite of all the above, our tastes continue differ between. So while I drink coffee without sugar, other do that otherwise, yet does mean the above though anything? In other words, the epithet “national dish” says nothing in essence, because there is no such dish that could be valued alike by all people. I can talk about “Cepelinai”, but I haven’t the right to name them the symbol of Lithuanian kitchen, because not all Lithuanians eat them. In spite of that, there are some spices that are honored by all people the same way. It isn’t sugar or salt. It is our love. We cook either with love, or out of duty and consequently taste either something delicious, or just the nutrition. It’s no matter what will be cooked concretely, the taste will depend on the love. The love is inescapable gradient of every single dish. That is the universal truth. While talking about Lithuanian kitchen, I can observe just one “specific” – the canned goods are not popular here.
However, this statement should be used with some precaution. The spread of the quick food eateries didn’t leave Lithuania somewhere aside, but influenced our morality the same way as it has done everywhere else in the world. As you know the fairy tales awake everywhere in the world, but do that only at midnight. Did you questioned yourself, why it is so?

1955-? digital painting 2008 by Tomas Karkalas, Lithuania

We face lots of changes on every step of our walk, but joy to serve our guests with what we have the best at the moment remains the same, and I am proud to partake in this “habit”. Lithuanian are used to visit each other without any special need for that and to do that at any time of the year by bringing some gifts to the mistress of the house. I think that is symbolical too. Every single day that we knock at a door of other, we participate in the greatest feast that ever was held on the earth. That gives taste to all that we experience. So Lithuanian kitchen reveals what matters indeed – that’s love…our attitude towards the life and our neighbor.