... ns and feasts at Christmas, Ne Years Eve, Easter, at celebrations of the dead - in Romanian mosii - in inter, spring, summer or autumn or of the life cycle - birth, marriage, death. During these special moments it takes the shape of a knot, communion bread, pretzels, flat cake, seet cream cheese cake colac, prescura, covrig, turta,pasca. The differences in shape and ornaments vary according to the ritual function, ith the anniversary to be celebrated and in hich the colac is offered as a gift. The most frequent symbols are the cross, the solar circle, the bird, man photography ith various types of pretzels, ornaments, moments, occasions edding, burial, the carol singing from house to house, the harvest reath. There is also another more recent kind of ritual bread prevailing all over the country the pound cake cozonac. Its dough is obtained by mixing heat flour, yeast, milk and butter. In the resulted dough e add pounded nuts, raisins, and, sometimes noadays, cocoa and Turkish delight .The mixture is portioned, poured into metallic tins and baked in the oven. A strict ritual function could be identified in focusing on another heat-dish, in Romanian called coliva crushed heat-grains, boiled in ater, seetened ith sugar or honey and mingled ith nuts offered at funerals and at funeral repasts projection ith the image of coliva.Peoples existence as marked by the big annual religious celebrations and fasting, by starting or finishing agricultural activities, inemaking, or fruit harvesting, or by the seasonal move of the sheep donard in the valleys or up on the mountains. Important ere also the times hen medicinal or mystical plants ere in floer or needed to be picked up. Each of these moments as given a ritual character and a memorable meaning, as people behaved differently, dressed festive and used metaphoric language. In Romania, 1 of March is the day hen men offer omen a kind of amulet and to knitted silk tassels a hite one and a red one. March 1st marks natures comes back to life and the beginning of the Lent Easter Fasting. Some Transylvanian villages celebrate rites of fire purification and keeping aay the bad inter spirits knon as the Bonfires or Village Shouting.There are many stories trying to explain the meaning of this ancient custom. The most popular is the one of the young man ho fought ith the bad dragon in order to release the sun imprisoned in an old castle, impeding the arrival of spring. The young man defeated the dragon, the spring came, but the hero as severely injured. His blood trickled on the hite sno. People shoed their consideration for the sacrifice of the young man by making amulets a silver coin ith the to tassels, the coin representing the sun, the source of life on the Earth. Another theory says that red as the sun and the fire is the symbol of the vitality of omen and hite as the pure cold sno or as the clouds the isdom of men, the oman and the man representing by their union the life. In Romanian the amulet is called martisor, its name coming from the month of March martie in Romanian. A long time ago, the omen used to offer the amulets to the man they loved, but today the things are changed, men offer these amulets to all omen they kno or ork ith, as an expression of their consideration. Other traditional amulets are chimney-seeper, horseshoes and clover sheets. That is the first celebration of spring in Romania. A eek later, on 9 of March, is the religious holiday of Mucenici, a kind of All Saints Day, celebrated in memoriam of the 40 martyrs killed in Sevastia because of their religion - Christianity, about more than 1500 years ago. Houseives prepare pretzels in form of number 8, then they make a kind of soup ith a lot of sugar, nuts and cinnamon and of course the pretzels. There is also a tradition to drink 44 glasses of ine. But the most important rel ... Download