Estonian Open Air Museum celebrates Bread Day with baking and butter churning
The Estonian Open Air Museum marked Bread Day by showing visitors how rye was grown, grain was milled, bread was baked and butter was churned in the old days. The Kutsari-Härjapea farmstead proved especially popular for its butter-making demonstrations.
The Estonian Open Air Museum held a festival dedicated to Bread Day, giving visitors a chance to see how people once grew rye, milled grain, baked bread and churned real cream into butter.
Butter churning the old way
One of the most popular spots at the festival was the Kutsari-Härjapea farmstead, where guests learned about traditional methods of making butter at home. Staff member Karita demonstrated a powerful butter churn in which poured cream gradually took on the right consistency, turning into butter. She said visitors had remarked they had never tasted butter this good before.
Another farmstead worker, Maret, showed a somewhat older butter-making device, in which cream is also poured in, and moving the handle back and forth eventually causes the cream to gather and turn into butter.
Bread made to an old recipe
Visitors could taste the fresh butter on hot bread straight from the oven. The bread was made according to an old recipe with only a few ingredients — flour, water, sugar, salt and, most importantly, sourdough starter, according to baker Maria.
Trying the work themselves
Besides tasting the finished products, guests could experience firsthand how much labor such food once required. Grain threshing also took place at the farmstead, and visitors were invited to try it themselves. Visitor Sofia said the work turned out to be quite demanding — around 15 minutes of threshing was already enough to feel the strain.
