Bread, especially rye bread, has long been a fundamental part of Lithuanian family life and culture. Bread is treated with great respect and seen as holy. Special traditions were followed on bread baking days to ensure the bread's quality and that there would always be bread in the home. While few bake bread at home today, Lithuanians still value bread as more important than gold due to its cultural and historical significance.

1. Family Bread and Wealth
Bread in Lithuania
• One of the oldest and most fundamental Lithuanian
food products was and is rye bread. Rye bread is
eaten every day for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Bread plays an important role in family holiday
rituals and agrarian ceremonies.

2. Family Bread and Wealth
• Bread is shown
great respect, is
called holy and is
referred to in the
feminine gender. If
a piece of bread
falls accidentally to
the ground, it is
picked up with
reverence, kissed
and eaten. This is
done so that the
home would never
be without bread.

3. • Bread baking day was a very special day. Peace and quiet
reigned in the home. If a visitor arrived on bread baking
day, he had to remain until the bread was done. Nothing
was loaned out on bread baking day, with the belief that
the borrower would take away the bread’s good taste.
Every homemaker is proud of the taste of her bread and
proudly states that one’s own bread is tastier than
somebody else’s cake. Even though very few
homemakers bake bread at home now, they value the
traditional belief that bread is more valuable than gold.

4. Superstitions
• Bread is shown great respect, is called holy
and is referred to in the feminine gender. If
a piece of bread falls accidentally to the • First loaf of bread
ground, it is picked up with is baked with a
reverence, kissed and eaten. This is done so cross sign on the
that the home would never be without top
bread.