Romanian Traditions - Coliva

This past Saturday, my boyfriend's paternal grandfather passed away. I had never met him, but I remembered how I felt when my grandfather passed away. I wanted to do something in my boyfriend's grandfathers' memory to make this time of grief easier for both him and his family. So after thinking a little bit about it, I ended up thinking of food as a method of comforting -- something it seems I think can solve all problems. 


In Romania we have a dish that's traditionally served when a family member passes away. Usually the widow or the immediate family members of the person passing away prepare this dish, but I thought it would be okay this time if I prepared the dish and gave it to my boyfriend's family. The tradition varies around the country, and since I'm from the capital city of Romania I wasn't familiar with how everything is carried out in the countryside - where all traditions are more deeprooted - but I knew what I had seen happen growing up. And I've learned more about the traditions in the countryside in these past few days as I was looking up various recipes for this dish. Turns out, in some parts of the country this dish is made by the deceased person's family and brought to the church on the day of the funeral. After it is blessed, it is then shared with everyone who attends the funeral. Now that I think about it, I think that is what happened at my grandfather's funeral but I was only six or seven years old when that happened so it's all a little blurry in my head. In larger cities, like in the capital, sometimes it is hard to gather everyone that wants to commemorate the deceased at once and so sometimes this dish is put in ornate tea cups and coffee mugs, which all match among each other but don't match the recipient's tea sets at home. These tea cups and coffee mugs are exactly that and are not designed specifically for this purpose. Once you receive a cup or a mug with this dish, you do not return the cup usually. My grandmother's cupboard is full of cups that don't match and she claims it's because she's received so many cups along the years from this tradition, but it's also because a lot of cups have been dropped and broken over the years, leaving most of her collections of cups and mugs down to one or two of the original sets of six. 


I have never had to cook this dish myself (although it's traditionally associated with a death in the family, sometimes it is cooked just because it tastes good), so this was an adventure. In Romania it's easy to find the ingredients; in the United States it isn't easy to find the ingredients. Since the dish originated in the countryside, where wheat kernels were readily available, procuring the ingredients wasn't a problem. Since wheat kernels aren't actually a staple in people's diets in the United States, procuring the ingredients here was harder. Luckily, in the larger grocery store in the international foods section, I found some wheat kernels. I forgot to get the recipe with me and only bought one bag, which means my whole recipe had to be cut in half once I got home. 


I boiled the kernels after washing and rinsing them thoroughly for about 40 minutes. The recipe said to cook them on low for 2-3 hours. Turns out not only is 6 not low enough of a setting for my stovetop, but also the kernels really cooked and partially burned on the bottom within the first 40 minutes. So I went through all the kernels (it felt like I was going one by one) until I picked out all the burnt kernels and started over in another pot. Once that was done and I let the kernels cool off, I added 3 oz of honey, 4 oz of sugar and 100 g of chopped walnuts. I stirred everything together and as would be expected, I forgot to add the vanilla, which I had to add later on after I set the food in it's serving dish. 


It is traditional to decorate the dish with candies and chocolate and cocoa powder, so I did. I first sprinkled powdered sugar on top. I used a cutout of a cross to keep the center area white in the shape of a cross and sprinkled cocoa powder on top. When I removed the paper cross cutout, I had the cross imprint left in white and cocoa powder all around it. I then placed chocolate covered cranberries in the white section in the shape of a cross. Here is an image of the resulting concoction:

May he rest in peace.