PITTSFIELD — Anna Meomutli picked up a brightly colored Easter egg and held it in the air poised to break it.

On the count of three, the 17-year-old cracked the egg against another one held by Linda Frontiero and the two women laughed out loud.

“I guess I’m going to have a good love life!” said Frontiero, 51, of Corinna as she examined the cracks on the egg.

Breaking the eggs is a Russian Orthodox tradition and one that Meomutli, a Russian native who currently attends Maine Central Institute, proudly explained to visitors such as Frontiero at Sunday’s International Food Festival, a tradition at the Pittsfield high school, which is home to students from 19 different countries.

In the egg breaking tradition, the person who ends up with the most cracked egg will have a good love life in the year to come, while an egg that is uncracked means a year of good health is in store, Meomutli said.

Eleven countries were represented at Sunday’s International Food Festival, which was open to the public and allowed participants to sample different foods and hear different stories from students from each country.

“It’s a tradition for MCI,” said teacher Sylvia Ogle, who was overseeing the event Sunday. “People get to try cuisines from each country without leaving Pittsfield. It’s just a fun thing. The students get up at 3 or 4 in the morning to start cooking.”

MCI is a public high school for students who live in Pittsfield as well as a private tuition-based school for students from elsewhere. About 140 of the school’s 450 students live in dorms on the campus, and celebrating the diversity of the world is part of the school’s mission, according to its website.

Mima Sibalic, 18, lives in the school’s dorms. On Sunday she made a traditional cheese pie from her home country of Serbia to share.

“It’s the first time I’ve made it,” Sibalic said, quietly admitting that she had used store-bought phyllo dough for the dish rather than homemade.

“People have been telling me it’s good, but I’ve had better,” she said. “It’s easy to make though, and I like sharing my culture and seeing what other people think of the food I eat at home.”

“The food is really interesting,” said Mark Plater, a St. Albans resident. “It’s delicious. You don’t see this type of variety anywhere else, and the students are wonderful to talk to.”

At another table, MCI teacher and dorm parent John Buys and Canadian student Abigail DeSchiffart, both of whom have ancestors from the Netherlands, were giving out samples of a traditional Dutch doughnut called oliebollen that they had made.

The dumpling-shaped doughnut is usually eaten in the winter months or to celebrate the New Year.

“It’s a tradition in my family on the New Year,” said DeSchiffart, 18. “My grandmother usually makes them with fruit in them, and the kids don’t usually like fruit, so we make our own afterwards. It’s one of the most traditional Dutch holiday foods.”

“It’s really cool,” she said of the food festival. “The dorms are all filled with people cooking. You kind of know people are from different places when you go to school here, but this is where you really get to see it.”

The festival is also a place for students to share stories about where they come from in addition to the foods they eat there, Buys said.

“I love hearing why the kids pick what they do, whether it’s something strange or a traditional food served for a holiday,” he said. “That’s the great thing about food is that it can bring people together to hear those stories.”

Rachel Ohm — 612-2368

rohm@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @rachel_ohm

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