Finnish Easter Bread

Country life in Finland can never have been easy: the climate sees to that. Small wonder, therefore, that their breads - which used to be predominantly of rye, barley and oats rather than wheat (and even of root crops and potatoes when the corn ran out) - were often designed for long keeping. There is a wonderful variety to them, kept alive by many self-sufficient and conservative home bakers (towns and villages were too sparse for there to be much professional baking trade), ranging from t