This article possibly contains original research. (September 2013) |
Type | Sweet bread |
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Place of origin | Ukraine |
Main ingredients | Milk, butter, eggs, sugar |
Paska (Ukrainian: пáска, romanized: páska [ˈpaskɐ]; Georgian: პასკა, romanized: paska, literally: "Easter" [ˈpʼaskʼa]; Romanian: pască; ultimately from Imperial Aramaic: פסחא, romanized: pasḥā, literally: "Passover")[1] is a Ukrainian Easter bread.[2][3] It is particularly spread in Central and Eastern European countries with cultural connections to the ancient Byzantine Empire, Eastern Orthodoxy or Eastern Catholicism. Easter breads are a traditional element in the Easter holiday cuisines of Armenia, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Poland, Slovakia and Ukraine. It is also eaten in countries with large immigrant populations from Central and Eastern Europe such as the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Easter bread is also a common tradition amongst the Assyrian-Chaldean-Syriac diaspora.
In Russian, paskha is the word for Easter; in Ukrainian, the word is spelled paska. For Russians, paskha is the also the name of a special cheese dessert made only for Easter, always accompanied by the Russian Easter bread kulich, a tall, cylindrical, yeast-raised, sweet bread decorated with white icing. For Ukrainians, however, paska is the name of their own Easter bread.