Appreciation of Estonian cuisine is a topic, which through examination, wider introduction and propagation, including product labelling thereof, enables to acknowledge and introduce our customs. In recent years the matter has been given somewhat more attention. However, as is the case, those studying the field and acting in it normally reach to a point, where the topic has already received attention, been recorded or studied earlier.
Regional cuisine is a topic, which is studied and valued in the Avinurme Cultural Heritage Centre.
On the one hand, it is desirable to offer guests and those partaking in the study programmes interesting and unique dishes. On the other, this is connected to need to study local eating habits, foods and cooking customs, especially given the fact that unlike carpentry traditions, local cooking customs have not yet been contemplated separately.
While dealing with local food, we reach a similar conclusion as with several other issues concerning the identity of Avinurme region.
Throughout the times, Avinurme has been a relatively isolated area, where aliens have rarely set their foot in. At the same time, it is kind of a border region where in the eating habits and cooking customs the influence of neighbours is clearly felt, especially as regards the dining table deriving from the neighbouring areas, with names of food modified in Avinurme dialect and cooking techniques with an added local sleight of hand.
Eating habits have been shaped, first and foremost, by the placement of the community in the midst of the great forests of Alutaguse, which are bordered by the cultivated areas of Viru and Torma neighbourhoods, by the fair share of forest fruits, berries, mushrooms, etc. at the dining table, as well as by long-standing hunting traditions that have been upheld in local woods and the areas of crown manor unlike in the neighbouring areas of hereditary manor. The Avijõgi River running through our village and not so distant Lake Peipsi have also a played a role in shaping our dining table. Situated between three former parishes (three counties now) with their distinctive ethnographic and linguistic characteristics, and being pushed from one administrative division into another, the people of Avinurme have still managed to retain their own traditions and eating habits, names of food, dishes and cooking techniques. And now there is a need and perhaps high time to study and revive Avinurme’s dining table, the peculiarities of which together with the expertise and skills of previous generations tend to be forgotten or overlooked in studies that are based on today’s administrative districts.
Avinurme cuisine has not yet been properly studied. Earlier studies, including those carried out by ethnographer Aliise Moora, collected in a thorough review of Estonian traditional food, do not particularly dwell on the cooking customs in these woods. At the time, Avinurme was a very outside area, far from the main roads.
Current reviews of Estonian cuisine relate to the area as not being influenced by northern Tartu county or Peipsi district but as part of eastern Estonia, Viru country. However, as the inhabitants of the latter we are the youngest newcomers of the worlds, and speaking of traditions or influences, there are no visible old, strong or traditional linkages. Thus, it is another area of interest where local roots have been cut and as the carriers of traditions, skills and tastes, we ourselves have to be diligent and consistent to record our differences, know-how and names of food, which along with Avinurme dialect are becoming obsolete.
Avinurme Cultural Heritage Centre invites all of you to participate in studying, developing and reviving our cooking traditions.
