01 00 27 15
When young people are forced away from where their parents live, they lose their traditions; villages go quiet, the old survive on memories and the forests and fields are exposed to outside buyers.

01 00 43 20
As global pressures force people off the land, there remain in corners of Europe, connections between the soil and people’s traditions and food.

01 01 03 24
In this episode we go to the geographical centre of Europe- the thick forests of the Dzukijos region in southwestern Lithuania

01 01 18 00
Morning, early summer in the hamlet of Margionys…

01 01 23 21
A herdsman gathers the farmer’s cows
and leads them into the forest.

01 01 30 06
He’s paid with a few coins, bread, cheese, a piece of bacon and as the animals graze, he gathers herbs, mushrooms and berries.

01 01 40 03
People here live as Europeans did for centuries: their crops and animal foods are augmented by the riches of the forest.

01 01 51 10
Today worried villagers ask if their way of life will survive the new free market economy.

01 01 59 20
The forests were once alive with deer, boar and bison; now protein comes mostly from pigs…they’re inexpensive to feed and almost all of them can be eaten.



01 02 10 10
At the café Pasaga, the success of the delicious pork ribs is in the family’s marinade secret.

01 02 23 03
Part of the mystery is chopped onion, spices, fresh dill and chilli in which the ribs soak for 24 hours.

01 02 35 13
The forest provides materials for houses,
heating
and cooking fuel.

01 02 44 06
And it provides food:
Raspberries, blueberries and wild strawberries for preserves;

01 02 51 02
…honey from wild bees as the main sweetener;

01 02 56 02

…flower petals for salads and meads;

01 03 01 23
…herbs -fresh and dried- for flavoring savories and teas.

01 03 09 06
In the village of Zervynos, Algis Svirnelis uses thyme collected in the forest, wraps the dried leaves in a cloth, crushes them to release their oils and steeps them for an aromatic tea.

01 03 34 14
Last century, trains for Berlin and Moscow ran through the region picking up the greatest prize of the forest: chanterelles and boletus mushrooms.

01 03 43 12
Then, as now, there were mushroom millionaires.

01 03 49 01
In one of the many scattered hamlets, Roma Lavrenova blends sugar with yeast…
01 03 55 16
adds wheat flour…

01 03 58 02
butter…

01 04 00 02
…and the yeast mixture to make a pastry…

01 0403 09
which, after she works it, rests for three hours.

01 04 09 06
She soaks dried mushrooms…

01 04 11 16
minces them…

01 04 17 23
and cooks them down with onions in oil.

01 04 21 09
The pastry is rolled out…

01 04 26 05
…cut…

01 04 29 16
stuffed with the mushroom mixture…

01 04 35 00
…and fried –

01 04 36 11
creating one of the regions great treats: stuffed mushroom ears.

01 04 41 14
In her larder she keeps ingredients for salting pork, a 2000 year old European tradition for preserving meat.

01 04 49 18
Salt, pepper and garlic are worked into the fat.


01 05 07 07
The pork is dredged in salt which preserves it.

01 05 11 16
After 12 days it’s ready and it can last for 2 years.

01 05 16 08
Lithuanians say ‘whatever we have to eat, without bacon and its fat we’re still hungry’.

01 05 30 11
Wheat, the European staple, grows well in protected areas but the sandy forest floor is more suitable for tougher barley and rye.

01 05 40 10
Jecenta Mikiniene kneads rye flour to make a hearty bread.

Sweet Flag from the river bank lines the tin to perfume the baking dough.

Jecenta recalls: ‘during Soviet times, which ended in 1992, bread wasn’t good- only one style with much less taste - factory processed’.

Caraway seeds are added for there bitter tang;
the dough is smoothed with lard to make a crusty surface.

01 06 09 07
In the tiled wood oven, which provides warmth…

01 06 12 15
…heats the water and bakes the bread, Jacinta adjusts the temperature.

01 06 19 23
Vincas, her husband, sings a resistance song.

01 06 32 03
Soldiers, he amongst them, hiding in the forest from Russian troops after the Second World War, lived off the foods they could gather.



01 06 42 17
Finally the bread is ready.

01 06 47 13
Jacenta shines it with butter and serves it with a mushroom soup spiked with fried garlic.

01 06 58 08
When the young move away to find work and the old remain, how do people feel safe?

01 07 11 18
Food, music, ritual, buildings and folk artefacts give substance to beliefs.

01 07 19 07
For centuries nameless sculptors from the forests have carved images of faith, as this one which stands in the precinct of the Church of St Simono in the village of Marcinkonys

01 07 31 11
The local ethnographer, Ona Drobeliene said ‘the people seek continuity.

01 07 43 18
They hope joining the European Union will provide a future in which they can share their lives with their children’. This means sustaining their farms and the forest as they are.

01 08 27 13
One old man said: ‘I’ve seen Polish, Nazi and Communist invaders come and go. Now we’ve got foreign businessmen and local deal-makers selling from under us our river banks and common lands. It’s said soon we won’t even be able fish in our own rivers.’

01 08 45 05
For the English, the forest was a symbol of freedom, for the Germans a source of strength, for the Lithuanians it was their home.

01 08 53 23
Amongst the trees and wild grasses are 2300 lakes and 8000 rivers:

01 09 08 04
Lithuanians love their fish which they catch and cook on the banks,
keep for salting, pickling,
and wind drying…

01 09 16 00
…or cook at home.

01 09 21 04
Algis Svirnelis and four of his seven brothers still live in the village of Zervynos. Increased tourism, especially river canoeing trips and UNESCO’s interest in making Zervynos a protected village have encouraged he and his brothers to stay.

01 09 45 13
Algis said ‘this place is what I know. I learnt beekeeping and the arts of the forest from my father and grandfather. What would I do in the city, carry bricks?’

01 10 00 08
The smaller of the bream and pike, caught by a brother in a local lake, and the heads and bones are used to make a fish stew.

01 10 09 19
Larger fish, smothered in garlic, salt and pepper are used for frying.

01 10 20 23
All of their food is local. Once a week a van visits the village; they buy if they need things but cash is scarce…what they gather from the forest, catch in the lakes or grow, they consume…they have land, food and a community, they just don’t have cash.

01 10 51 18
As his brothers and friends continue to leave, he worries that knowledge of the lakes and forest will be lost forever, that more families will be broken up.

01 11 30 21
The fish soup with its root vegetables is eaten with sour cream or sweet milk from their cow.

01 11 53 21
In the village bees are still kept.

01 12 03 06
Until the last century there was no sugar imported to the region; honey was the natural sweetener.

01 12 11 08
Algis said “This past autumn was cold and the winter long. The bees went into their hives early but didn’t sleep, they kept working with everything inside their stomachs…if they stay in their hives they can’t process the waste…so they die.

01 12 23 09
Knowing their ways, Algis still enjoys their thick honey on his homemade cheese.

01 12 46 22
From area to area around the forest are different soils - some good for wheat, some for oats, a little for cattle and the rest for green vegetables and potatoes.

01 12 58 11
Most fields are small and sandy, uneconomical for tractors…the horse and ploughshare still serve. Although it is tough work, it is affordable…

01 13 09 00
no bank loans for expensive equipment, no machine maintenance or petrol and its fumes…

01 13
…it is quiet, the crops are good…

01 13 17 09
…the horse manures the fields and the farmer knows the earth under his boots.

01 13 29 23
Vincas Kvaraciejus raises a few pigs and grows a small amount of buckwheat.


01 13 36 02
A member of the sorrel family rather than a grain, buckwheat thrives in harsh climates and on poor sandy soil.

01 13 49 01
Vincas mills the whole grain including the husk which makes it a healthy, fibrous ingredient, a good replacement for wheat

01 14 06 11
His wife Danute bakes a Buckwheat cake with sour cream…

01 14 10 08
sugar…

01 14 14 07
5 eggs and more sugar…

01 14 26 11
and the buckwheat.

01 14 41 01
She uses rendered pig’s lard for greasing the cake pan.

01 14 54 20
Danute said: ‘the cake used to be eaten instead of bread. I remember my mother making it when I was a child but during Soviet times we forgot the recipe. Now I’ve re-learnt it.’

01 15 07 16
She added ‘You can only find this kind of cake in the farmhouses, not in shops’.

01 15 38 23
Maryte Gulgiene keeps a cow…it provides milk for cheese and cream, fertilizer for the fields and calves for meat.

01 15 50 06
Twice a day without fail the cow must be milked.

01 15 57 12
The milk is strained and immediately ready to be used.

01 16 09 21
Everyday, summer and winter, Maryte’s neighbour Jeva, using the constant supply of milk, produces cheese.

01 16 17 00
A hard cheese is made soon after milking when it‘s rich with sweet cream.

01 16 26 20
The milk is poured into a cloth bag and overnight the liquid or whey seeps out, leaving the curd.

01 16 36 10
This is pressed in her special wooden box where it dries and takes shape.

01 16 51 12
She also makes a sour curd cheese.

01 16 53 23
“I don’t sell it; most people make their own but if a neighbour needs one, I give it to them for nothing; our village lives like one family”.

01 17 10 14
As people attempt to sustain their foods and way of life, they are returning to folk traditions - a way to rediscover their roots. But since the long Soviet occupation, Lithuanian and Soviet traditions have merged, causing some confusion.

01 17 59 14
Singing is a way of getting together. Maryte said: ‘We’re the last to learn the songs…our children have moved to town.

01 18 10 08
Maryte and her neighbour Agota Bakanauskiene make a local speciality with grated potatoes, sour cream, eggs, wheat flour and salt.

01 18 30 14
The pan is larded and filled with the mixture

01 18 35 21
They have cooked together since they were 12, always for local funerals, festivals and weddings.

01 18 43 05
Agota said there’s a proverb: ‘Sunday without a potato pie is like a wedding without a musician.’

01 19 05 20
After an hour in the pine fuelled oven -pine for the flavour- they layout the slices, the creams, cheese and honey.

01 19 18 08
Jeva has brought her cheese to share along with a song.

01 19 54 04
Danute Poskuviene trained as an agronimo;

01 20 02 20
…her husband worked on a Soviet collective farm. She now works as a clerk; her husband is unemployed.

01 20 09 12
They keep a vegetable patch; they have the skills; without it they couldn’t feed their three sons.

01 20 15 08
Danute hopes but fears her children will go abroad for a better life.

01 20 23 08
As her husband waits to water the plants she asks: ‘What is freedom for?”

01 20 30 18
Midsummer eve. The wind is up and the air has a chill but all around the country people gather to celebrate with food and drink, song, prayers and bonfires.

01 20 43 03
Steaming pancakes, smothered with fruit jams, honey or curd cheese, helped with rye moonshine.


01 20 58 07
And in the forests, people gather.

01 21 06 23
Lithuania was the last country in Europe to become Christian and still the religious festivals only vaguely mask the pagan beneath.

01 22 13 05
As with their food and music, they hold on to original traditions.

01 22 46 14
Vaidotes Gutauskai searches his potato patch for Colorado Beetles.

01 22 54 19
Until 1997 he and his wife Irena ran an organic farm but cheap imports ruined their market.

01 23 04 17
Now he raises potatoes and Irena runs their cafe which Viadotes built by hand.

01 23 14 20
She makes delicious Cepeline..another famous potato dish filled with pork.

01 23 36 01
While they boil, she stuffs a pig’s gut with mashed potato…


01 23 47 09
…and also fries the same mash for stuffed pancakes.

01 23 53 18
She layers these with pork and more mash.

01 24 04 19
The boiled cepeline are served with sour cream and bacon fat…

01 24 14 24
…a dish enjoyed by passers-by.

01 24 27 11
Irena said ‘In Soviet times people had money but nothing to buy; now there is plenty to buy, but no money.

01 24 44 06
Her dream, based on his potatoes and her cooking is: ‘by working hard we’ll survive’.


01 25 01 02
….a farmer wanting a wife made a snowwoman…the snowwoman always smiled…one day the man told her ‘My cow had died’. She went on smiling- he cried ‘you don’t have a heart. At that moment she melted in front of him and:

Text
all that was left was the beating heart.

(W=2012)