How to dye eggs for Easter the natural way?/Hogyan fessünk húsvétra tojást természetes módon?

There are several traditions linked to Easter in different countries. One of the most widespread is colouring eggs. Eggs are traditionally symbols of fertility and in connection with Christianity they represent resurrecion, the start of new life as well.

I'm writing about Hungarian traditions now, which may be similar to customs in other countries as well.
On Good Saturday and Easter Sunday Hungarian girls and women colour eggs so that they can give eggs to boys and men on Monday who sprinkle the ladies with water or parfume. The eggs have to be nice as they can also be love tokens.

There are several traditional ways to colour eggs. The most widespread method is using the (bronwish) dried outer skin of onions as colouring material. This gives eggs a red-brownish colour.

There are various recipes on how to do this. Basically the most important thing is to use a lot of onion skin, boil them in water for about 30 min, put some vinegar into the water (depending on the amount you boil it can be 2 spoonfuls of 10% vinegar or more). Vinegar helps in fixing the colour. Some people say that you have to boil the eggs together with the onion skin, some say that first boil the eggs and then boil the onion skin and then let the eggs rest in the onion skin water for a day or a few hours.

I think it depends on what you want. If you want to eat the eggs it is better to boil the eggs for 10 minutes and then put them into cold onion skin water that you had boiled for at least 30 minutes beforehand, leave them rest and from time to time you can take them out to see if you are satisfied with the colour. You can leave eggs in the onion skin water overnight. If you don't want to eat the eggs you can boil them for 30 minutes together with the onion skin but then they become really hard, greenish in the middle and maybe not be so tasty to eat. But tastes differ. These kind of eggs are also not impossible to eat and they last for a longer time. If you want to put your eggs on display for a week in the middle of your dining table then it is a good idea to boil them long so that they don't go off easily.

There are other materials which you can use for colouring. These are camomille tea, red cabbage, coffee, paprika powder, saffron, beetroot etc. Basically any kind of coloured plant that you can normally eat if boiled in water for some time can colour you eggs. Just don't forget to put in vinegar (or salt in the case you use berries). Some people recommend using the dried leaves of walnut tree for a brownish black colour effect. This is of course a traditional dye but beware that walnut leaves are poisonous, so if your egg breaks in the process don't eat them. If you google natural dyes you can get many ideas for colouring eggs, but always keep in mind not to use poisonous plants.

Colouring eggs is simple. But there are also various ways to make patterns.

1. Scratch patterns into the already coloured egg with the help of a needle or a pointed knife, scissors (requires skill, eggs easily break.)
   
2. Draw patterns onto the egg with melted wax before colouring, after colouring boil the egg again to remove the wax. The waxed areas will remain uncoloured. You need a secial tool for drawing with melted wax. This tool is called íróka in Hungarian therefore the name of this technique is írókázás.
   
3. Drop wax drips to make a dotted egg and then colour the egg, remove the wax see above. (This is easier then drawing, you just light a candle and let drops of wax fall onto the egg.)
4. Tie several pieces of onion skin onto the egg with a thread and boil the egg this way together with vinegar. This is supposed to give the egg a marble effect. This technique is called márványozás.
   
5. This is my favourite method: Collect small leaves (parsley can be very decorative). Put water on them and stick them to the egg with water. After this put the egg with the leaves into a nylon stocking or tie it in ellastic gauze so that the small leaves remain stuck to the egg's surface. (The nylon stockings are easier to do and the holes on them are finer.) Place the whole thing into the dye. When later you remove the stocking the print of the leaves will remain on the eggs. See below. (This technique is called berzselés in Hungarian.)

After colouring and decorating put a little oil onto the surface of the eggs to make them shiny (or do the traditional way and scrub them with a piece of bacon.) If you want to keep your eggs for a long time (for years) you should apply lacqueur.

Tips:

• Before colouring it is a good idea to wash the eggs thoroughly. Thery should not be greasy.
• Use strong dyes. If you use just a few onion skin pieces then you have to leave the eggs in the dye for a longer period of time. If you use a stronger dye (more pieces of onion skin or whatever material you use) the colour effect will be stronger and it works in a shorter period of time. (You can start to collect onion skins a few weeks before Easter.)
  
• When you fasten leaves onto the egg with a stocking make sure that it is very tightly tied onto the egg. Otherwise the contours of the leaves will not be strong.

Source of photo: http://www.ovodatar.hu/otlettar/2008/03/22/tojasfestes_petrezselyemmel/
Here you can see more photos and there is a good description in Hungarian on how to dye eggs like this with children in kindergarden. (They used 1-1.5 kg of onion skin to dye eggs for all the children!)