Recipes for Lent and Days of Fasting
Generally, every Wednesday and Friday is a
day of fasting, as are the eight weeks before Easter, from August 1 through 14,
and from November 15 through December 24, as well as some other days throughout
the year. Consult your church calendar for specific days.
In Orthodox tradition, on these days we
don't eat meat or animal products (no butter, cheese, milk, eggs). In
most places fish (that looks like a fish) is also not eaten, though other
seafood, such as shrimps, squids, clams, are
allowed. Olive oil and wine are also not used, generally with the
exception of Saturdays and Sundays during longer fasting periods, and
occasionally fish is allowed. For specific exceptions and days, consult
your church calendar or install a desktop
Menaion.
Vegetables such as onions and garlic are not
forbidden as they are in Buddhist fasting. Therefore, these recipes
reflect a liberal use of both onions and garlic to make up for the lack of meat
juices for flavoring. And while olive oil use is restricted, other
vegetable-based oils or margarine are usually substituted, and the recipes
below contain oil. When there is no fast, you can use olive
oil instead of other oils, and if you want to abstain from oils
altogether, use a little bit of water instead of oil.
There are other websites containing recipes
for Lent, but here we have recipes from two sources. The first are
traditional among Slav peoples. In Central and Eastern Europe winters are
cold, and before the modern supermarket, the only vegetables that could be
stored over the winter were primarily potatoes, onions, and salted cabbage
(sauerkraut), and there was little chance for fresh seafood with rivers and
lakes frozen. Thus these recipes are heavy in potatoes and cabbage.
The second group of recipes contains
ingredients widely available in Taiwan. Here winters are mild and there
is always an abundance of fresh vegetables and seafood as well as many types of
tofu and other vegetarian products. Thus we can combine flavours more acceptable to a European palate with Asian
ingredients and spices to create dishes so tasty we don't believe we are
depriving ourselves of anything!
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Fasolakia
(Green green beans)
Lima Bean and Tomato Soup
Octopus Salad
Spanakorizo
(Greek spinach rice) Shrimp and Squid with Peppers and Mushrooms
Shrimp with
Dill, Corn, and Mushrooms
Spicy Shrimp and
Vegetables with Mama Africa Sauce Squid with Basil and Chilis (Thai style) Seafood Curry (Thai style)
Meatless Spaghetti
Sauce with Pasta Tabouli (Middle Eastern bulgur and parsley salad) |