- Title: Edible artworks: Ukrainian home baker carries on tradition of Christmas cookies
- Date: 16th December 2020
- Summary: KOTELVA, UKRAINE (DECEMBER 14, 2020) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF KOTELVA RESIDENT, OKSANA DOROSHENKO, DECORATING CHRISTMAS COOKIE DOROSHENKO CUTTING DOUGH INTO SHAPES WITH MAKESHIFT COOKIE CUTTER DOROSHENKO PLACING RAW COOKIE ONTO BAKING SHEET DOROSHENKO CUTTING DOUGH INTO SHAPES WITH COOKIE CUTTER COOKIE CUTTERS ON TABLE DOROSHENKO CUTTING DOUGH INTO SHAPES AND PLACING RAW COOKIES ONTO BAKING SHEET (SOUNDBITE) (Ukrainian) KOTELVA RESIDENT, OKSANA DOROSHENKO, SAYING: "Cookies from Kotelva have the same traditional shape as they are made with the same old cutters, but they have a slightly different nature as I use a different recipe for preparing the dough and paint different ornaments. But the tradition is the same. I use ethnic motifs, Ukrainian traditional ornaments. I use decorated Easter eggs and Ukrainian embroidered ritual cloth as inspiration." VARIOUS OF DOROSHENKO TAKING BAKING SHEET AND PUTTING IT INTO OVEN COOKIES ON BAKING SHEET SEEN INSIDE OVEN DOROSHENKO PLACING BOXES WITH CHRISTMAS COOKIES ON TABLE VARIOUS OF CHRISTMAS COOKIES ON TABLE (SOUNDBITE) (Ukrainian) KOTELVA RESIDENT, OKSANA DOROSHENKO, SAYING: "It is our historical and cultural legacy. And I don't want this folk art to vanish and fade away in the crazy rhythm of modern life. I don't want it to die with our grannies. I want young people to practice this tradition and pass it on from generation to generation. I want young women to bake these traditional cookies for New Year and Christmas, bake these cookies in the shape of horses and teach their children how to bake." VARIOUS OF CHRISTMAS COOKIES ON TABLE DOROSHENKO DECORATING CHRISTMAS COOKIE IN SHAPE OF HOUSE DOROSHENKO'S FACE DOROSHENKO DECORATING COOKIE DOROSHENKO'S SON WATCHING OVER HER SHOULDER AS SHE DECORATES COOKIE DOROSHENKO DECORATING (SOUNDBITE) (Ukrainian) KOTELVA RESIDENT, OKSANA DOROSHENKO, SAYING: "My son Seraphym turned one year old right before the Christmas holidays and I wanted to try and bake traditional cookies. I asked my sister-in-law to teach me. We spent all night baking cookies, then we decorated them till morning. The process absorbed me. I enjoyed it so much. I don't have the words to describe the feeling, but it touched something inside me, it absorbed me completely."
- Embargoed: 30th December 2020 10:42
- Keywords: Kotelva Oksana Doroshenko Poltava region Ukraine cookie cutters decorated cookie traditional ornaments
- Location: KOTELVA, UKRAINE
- City: KOTELVA, UKRAINE
- Country: Ukraine
- Topics: Arts/Culture/Entertainment,Europe
- Reuters ID: LVA001D99AQ7T
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Oksana Doroshenko is one of a few people who still practice a rare century-old art of decorating Christmas cookies native to her home village of Kotelva in Ukraine's central Poltava region.
Using piping bags with colourful icing, Doroshenko painstakingly adorns giant cookies with intricate ornaments and designs inspired by Ukrainian folk art.
She inherited handmade cookie cutters in the shapes of horses with riders and of girls from her grandmother-in-law, Halyna Doroshenko, who was a well-known artist in the region.
Doroshenko still keeps a twelve-year-old cookie baked and hand-decorated by Halyna in a cupboard.
Traditionally godmothers baked the delicacies before Christmas, which is celebrated on January 7 in Ukraine.
Godparents gifted horse-shaped cookies to godsons and woman-shaped cookies to goddaughters. It was common to keep the cookie as a talisman instead of consuming it.
A gifted artist, Doroshenko upgraded a traditional recipe which consisted of just four ingredients - water, sugar, baking powder and flour - with modern components like limoncello, amaretto, and carob and spices.
It takes four days from preparing the dough to finishing one of the edible artworks. Decorating one cookie can take a whole day.
Doroshenko says the tradition of preparing local delicacies vanished after big confection makers started the mass production of Christmas sweet boxes.
(Production: Sergiy Karazy, Margaryta Chornokondratenko) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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