At Easter, we – I and my husband – had family members for lunch: 10 adults, two teenagers and three children. We had fun. Children were looking for hidden chocolate eggs. We celebrate a few times a year together and also enjoy good food.
We have traditionally offered lamb at Easter, but this year chicken. It is more environmentally friendly than sheep. Except for the chicken, processed cheese and chocolate eggs, all the food was vegan. With the chicken, long-grain oats were offered. It is like rice and is also an environmentally friendly and healthy alternative. No eggs were offered. I don’t eat meat, so I also prepared vegetable forcemeat.
The starter was a salad, which included broccoli, rocket salad, grapes and some avocado on a soya yoghourt bed. As dessert, we served coffee and two types of cake. One of the cakes was a vegan cheesecake without cheese and the other was a mämmi-mud cake.
Mämmi is a sweetened rye porridge made from rye malt and rye flour. It is low in energy but high in protein, fiber and trace elements such as iron. In Finland, mämmi has been produced since the 18th century. When malted from rye, the starch in the rye turns into sugar, so the mämmi is so sweet that no additional sweetness is needed. Mämmi is traditionally eaten with milk or cream. It divides people. Some love it, others don’t want it at all.
The young people in our family have previously refused to eat mämmi. It is black in color and may bring to mind something less pleasant. In the mämmi mud-cake, I put mämmi and among other ingredients vegan chocolate. Everyone loved it, even my little granddaughter. There was only a small taste of mämmi.