Lucky Pea Soup – Hernesupp- for Mardi Gras in Estonia

It seems that there are two main categories of Mardi Gras food, rich, sweet cakes meant to use up all the sugar and fat before Lent, and savory,”lucky” foods. In the sweet camp are Polish Paczki, French galette des rois, Scandinavian Semla (called vastlakukkel in Estonia) or Hawaiian Malasadas. On the other hand are savory foods that are deemed lucky. In Eastern Europe, one such lucky, savory dish is a hearty pea soup. The classic Estonian Mardi Gras Soup is called hernesupp, and is a hearty mix of yellow split peas and pork. Check out these classic recipes from Nami-Nami (seen below) and Stanford.