Latvian School of Chicago Piparkūku Working Bee

Watch how a piparkūku working bee takes place at the Latvian School of Chicago! Participants share their experiences, the meaning and importance of piparkūkas, as well as what they like most about piparkūkas…

Pīrāgi is a Comforting Food for Me (Māra Goldsmith)

The pīrāgi recipe that Māra Goldsmith uses every year when baking pīŗāgi for Christmas was passed down to her by Mrs. Arnoldija in Sydney. In this interview, Māra talks about a special trick that makes the dough magical. According to her, it is exactly this that allows you to bake the most delicious pīrāgi in the world!

It’s Not Christmas Without Pīrāgi (Anda Cook)

For as long as I can remember, pīrāgi held a place of honor at the Christmas table, and also at Easter. The necessary ingredients were not always easy to find, but my mother made sure to get them in time. In Cleveland, she had discovered a stall at the Westside Market, where she would go after work on Fridays. Her pīrāgi were not only delicious, but she always tried to make them very small, with plenty of meat filling.

My mother has been gone for a long time, and together with my daughter Lisa and granddaughter Greily, we have tried various recipes – but none are quite like my mother’s pīrāgi, neither in appearance nor in taste. The closest we’ve come was a few years ago. We use Dzidra Zeberiņa’s Ģimenes pavards (with a few variations – ed.).

It’s a lot of work, but we listen to Latvian folk songs and linger over memories. Sometimes, it even happens that a pīrāgs gets burned at both ends! And, of course, it’s not Christmas without pīrāgi.

It Smells of Braised Sauerkraut! (Juris Sinka)

Juris Sinka arrived in the United Kingdom in 1950, where he studied at the University of Oxford. In his diary entry of December 20, 1950, Juris describes how the smell of cabbage filled the recently purchased Daugavas Vanagi house in Queensborough Terrace:
‘I am truly very glad that this house now belongs to Latvians. At the moment it smells of braised sauerkraut! It’s a pity I didn’t talk to the landlady—maybe she would have given me a portion. There isn’t any real catering set up yet. They have only been here for two weeks.’

The Decorating Process Takes Seven Hours (Anita Kupcis-Clifford)

Anita writes: “After seeing some videos of cookies being decorated I was intrigued. That was seven years ago and since then I have decorated many cookies. My sense of design for my cookies might be attributed to my years of embroidery, specifically Latvian designs.
My piparkukas are different from my mom’s, hers were rolled very thinly and glazed with egg yolk. I recall when my mother would come for visits with a suitcase full of piparkukas, pirags and pounds of butter. I started making both when my mother was no longer able to do it.”

Grandma’s Pīrāgi in Rome (Austra Muižniece)

Austra Muižniece tells about baking Oma’s pīŗagi in Rome:
“They turn out quite well, but for me the dough made with Italian tipo 00 flour tastes a bit sweeter. I didn’t have caraway seeds, and pancetta or guanciale are different from our smoked meats. But at least the yeast worked perfectly — the dough rose beautifully, which made me happy. Complete nostalgia, feels like grandma’s food.”

Communal Baking in Shanghai (Ilma Wilkinson)

Ilma Wilkinson: “I bake piparkūkas every year — for me, Christmas just isn’t Christmas without “real” Latvian gingerbread. We used to bake together as a family, but when we moved to Shanghai in 2004, we began inviting friends and colleagues to join the tradition — Chinese, Australians, Europeans. In the early years, finding all the necessary spices was more difficult, and some I even had to grind myself.
In 2013, for the first time, the bakers were only Latvians, and the joy of being together was so great that from then on we continued baking gingerbread specifically with the Latvian crowd. We soon added pīrāgi to the tradition as well. Many friends lived in student dorms or apartments without an oven (common in Chinese kitchens), but we were renting a newer apartment and had one available. For those who couldn’t join on the planned baking day, I handed out little portions of piparkūkas dough (which my husband Andrew jokingly called “hashish blocks”) so they could bake at home. By December, our office reception had even gotten used to people dropping by to pick up a lump of dough.
In 2020, we had the largest group ever — because of COVID, many couldn’t travel home for the holidays. That also turned out to be our last Christmas season in Shanghai, as we returned to Australia in October 2021.
To my great joy, I recently received a message from a friend who still lives in China — two years ago, the Latvian Embassy allowed the community to use its kitchen and oven for baking pīrāgi. The new ambassador’s spouse has embraced this as a tradition, and this year, on the first Sunday of Advent, Latvians in Shanghai once again gathered to bake Christmas treats together!”