For a long time, only the houses of the social elites (the royal court, the castles of aristocracy, and the monasteries) had a special room for preparing food. Until the houses were built with more rooms (at the end of the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th century), people\u2019s dwellings had no kitchens.
\nUrbanization and the turn up of the electronic devices determine the kitchen functions and furniture. In some cases, the kitchen kept its traditional role that of cooking and of living space, and in other cases its dimensions became very small, allowing only to cook. In this cases the role of living room were transferred to other spaces of the apartment. SzL<\/p>\n
THE CHRISTMAS MEAL AT THE SCHWABS OF SATU MARE<\/p>\n
The objects laid on and around the Christmas table get a magic meaning. The table cloth plays its role only on Christmas, on the rest of the year it is used to cover the yeasting bread. This tradition is meant to assure a reach crop and good bread. At the Christmas meal, the pork dishes are the most important beside other foods. Pods, cooked pumpkin and, recently, fish consumed during the Christmas dinner are meant to assure the financial prosperity of the future year. There is also whole bread on the Christmas table, so that it will be bread on the table all year long. SzL<\/p>\n
ST. ANDREW\u2019S FEAST AT THE UKRAINIANS OF NORTH-WESTERN ROMANIA<\/p>\n
The feast of St. Andrew has special role in youngsters\u2019 life, forecasting the celebration of the Christmas and of the New Year\u2019s Eve. Practices of fortune-telling dominate this day. Girls, in order to find out whether they will be married or not, go to the pigs\u2019 sty and \u201cask\u201d the pig with a special formula. If the pig squeals, they will get married that year. Another practice is to go, at midnight, at the fountain and ask it when they will get married. Other premarital customs practiced by the girls are: to number the piles from the fence of the house starting with the last one; to make small cookies and some tickets with names of boys on them are inserted in the cookies and given to the hungry cat so that it would pick up the name of the boy to be \u201cthe one\u201d; the baby\u2019s crying at the window; in the evening, the girls gather and overturn plates under which are different objects: a comb (the destined one will have large teeth), a pencil (he will be clever), mirror (handsome), money (reach), bread (good as bread) etc. The rite of the \u201cpulling out of the pile\u201d (kulja) is a sort of witchcraft in order to attract the chosen one: the pile is pulled out from the fence, it is brought in the house and it is pricked with nine thorns of the purple thistle (sciumene ziljia) saying the appropriate incantation. LH<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"