Hopefully, everyone enjoyed a plentiful, year-end holiday season with appreciative gift-exchanges, joyful events, and hearty festivities, including New Year’s Eve.
Soula and I watched TV, alternating between various channels to watch the extensive ceremonies all across the USA. Eagerly anxious to stay up until midnight, we sipped a Rum-Daiquiri, and prepared to watch the final countdown, ”… 4, 3, 2, 1” of the big ball in New York City.
We wish you a very “Happy New Year” for 2017, and many decades ahead.
Hopefully, everyone enjoyed a plentiful, year-end holiday season with appreciative gift-exchanges, joyful events, and hearty festivities, including New Year’s Eve.
Soula and I watched TV, alternating between various channels to watch the extensive ceremonies all across the USA. Eagerly anxious to stay up until midnight, we sipped a Rum-Daiquiri, and prepared to watch the final countdown, ”… 4, 3, 2, 1” of the big ball in New York City.
We wish you a very “Happy New Year” for 2017, and many decades ahead.
The New Year is commonly celebrated by most people of Greek heritage to honor a version of the “Legend of St. Basil.” He served as a bishop many ages ago. He learned that so many people were very poor. Every year, in the week before the New Year, he went from town to town to bake loaves of pita-bread for them. He placed a coin in each loaf. The coin was meant to bring Good Luck to the recipients.
This great legend and traditional ritual takes place at social and community functions on almost any day through the month of January. Most families celebrate with a dinner at home.
The “highlight” of this annual occasion is the special loaf of bread known as VA-SI-LO-PITA which gets its name from St. Basil. The name, “Basil,” in Greek, is pronounced as “VASILI,” Thus, we have VASILO-PITA.
Almost everyone knows that “pita” means some kind of a delicious, baked food. Greek- Americans, especially, and many other people know about “spa-na-ko-pita,” (spinach-pie) often only spoken as “pita.” (“Spinach-haters” may not know the basic ingredient is finely chopped spinach, but love to eat it anyway. I like spanakopita better when ground meat is included in it.
But this article is about the VASILO-PITA.
It starts with the home-baking of the bread. My lovely wife, Soula mixes twelve ingredients in a big, round bowl until it all becomes a big, round “ball,” (a bit smaller than a football.)
The “fun” part for me is when the “dough-ball” has been placed in a large, round pan and my job is to hold the pan steady on a kitchen counter; keep the pan from moving, and repeatedly turn the pan sideways, intermittently while Soula kneads the dough. (NOT “Needs” the Money.)
Kneading the dough takes a lot of time, strength, and concentration. (It’s a real challenge for me to stand upright for ten minutes or so, next to my “four wheel chariot.” In more recent years, our two daughters, Mary and Zoe, have taken over my tedious chore of holding the baking pan.)
Soula begins by spreading a bit of flour on the pan to keep the dough from sticking. She uses both hands to knead the dough back and forth, and flips the dough over and over many times, to blend all the ingredients.
When the pita dough is ready for baking, Soula places a coin (usually a dime or a quarter) into the batter. She arranges to bake one large, round vasilo-pita. That is for our family dinner on a day in January when most of our family can attend. She also bakes many, much smaller individual pitas; one for each family member, and any others who could not be present at the dinner. A dime or a quarter is inside each vasilopita.
When the baked pitas are removed from the oven, Soula places the bake-pans in our hall bathroom, and closes the door to keep anyone from entering. She raises the house temperature so the extra heat will cause the baked pitas to continue to “rise” in size.
When everyone has finished eating dinner, the big, round VASILOPITA is placed in front of me, (ME, being the eldest) to cut individual slices of the pita-bread for each person. Everyone watches carefully and hopes the coin is in their piece. When the coin is found, everyone wishes GOOD LUCK to the recipient. (I have seven coins in a drawer. I feel I have, and have had, a very lucky lifetime… I’m 93.)
Most families have their own way of celebrating this traditional “ceremony” but cutting the slices has as a “specific sequence of distribution.”
(The following was excerpted from the book, “A Guide to Greek Traditions and Customs In America” written by Marilyn Rouvelas.
‘The head of the household makes the sign of the cross on the pita with a knife while saying “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
Pieces of the pita are cut in a specific order. Protocol varies, but the first piece is always for Christ. It should be wrapped and placed in the home ikonostasi .(sacred place.) The second and third pieces are for the Virgin Mary and St. Basil, and the fourth for the poor. The head of the house receives the next piece and the rest of the family receive theirs according to their ages, including those family members who are not at home… and for any other guests ……..”
As I cut each slice, I wish each recipient “Chronia Pola = Many Years.”
Some families set aside a piece for St. Basil, similar to the way some cookies and milk are left for Santa, as we Americans do.
“CHRONIA POLA! To all for Many Years.” H A P P Y N E W Y E A R …
Bill Thomas of Rossmoor is a Veteran of World War II, and Past Commander of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 4048, and American Legion Post 857. Contact Bill at vvbthomasvets@gmail.com