Every religion in the world practices fasting. Vegetarian or vegan eating is normal in some sects of Buddhism – although strictly speaking Buddhism is not a religion, but a philosophy.
Islam practices fasting as does Judaism. Both these religions fast in a more drastic way than Christians do, going without food or water for twenty-four hours at a time. But back to Christianity. We all know that Christians, mostly Orthodox and Catholics, fast for Lent, but there are other holy days, special name days and others.
These two religions also advocate no meat on Friday and the pious follow this, but most followers of Greek Orthodox faith fast for Easter and a couple of other special occasions in the year. Today’s Greeks are not great advocates of vegetarianism outside the holy fasting. Unfortunately, Greeks eat too much meat with their new found affluence.
When I was living in Athens it shocked me to find that meat was on the menu every single day. With the move these days toward a slow food culture and looking back to tradition for inspiration, the trend of overeating meat is being reversed. New cookbooks are being written for a generation who had lost their mother’s cooking skills.
Wonderful food shows are on TV seeking the regional and more traditional food sources and recipes. I go shopping for Greek cookbooks whenever I’m in Greece and am amazed at what I have found. Most Greek cookbooks are not just a collection of recipes, but also chronicle history, traditions, and religious influences Amongst these are the monastic cookbooks, which are written by monks in monasteries.
Huge volumes that often come in A and B volumes because of the amount of material available. One example has come from Mount Athos (in two volumes) and other well-known monastic orders. I have in my possession two of these and I shall attempt to give you an insight to them and recipes to go along. Greek Orthodox Monasteries never have meat on their menus; there is fish, vegetables and fruit.
All the vegetables are grown on and around the monastic lands and are organic. As I flick through the books and look at the recipes I am reminded of my paternal grandmother who never ate meat and followed the same diet as the monks. She did, however, feed her six children meat. Subsequently my paternal aunties could lay out a table during lent that would make you want to give up meat anyway and I grew up with a strict Mediterranean diet with masses of legumes, vegetables, lots of fish and meat about twice a week.
The Greek diet – if followed as tradition would have it – is as we all know (and science knows) one of the healthiest in the world. I took a look at the regions in the world where longevity is a given, here is a short list; Hunza in Pakistan, Nicoya in Costa Rica, Bama in China, Loma Linda in California USA, Abkhasia in the Caucasus of Southern Russia, Okinawa in Japan, Sardinia and Compodimele in Italy.
But in Greece we have three well known and well studied regions of longevity: Crete, the island of Simi and the now world famous Island of Icaria. Take note that none of these areas are in big cities and the majority of them are not in affluent areas except maybe the Greek islands who these days share affluence, especially Crete. These people have generally managed to keep their traditional eating habits.
I have also seen a talk on the reasons for longevity and the main conclusion by researchers is: small portions, lots of vegetables and (in the case of the Greek islands) a short rest in the middle of the day. The monastic life advocates the best diet for us, but how many of us are capable of adhering to it except my grandmother? I know I can’t as much as I would love to.
This diet is not only good for you eliminating circulatory problems and other diseases, like some forms of cancer, but keeps you trim as well. I have often told the story of fasting during lent in Greece with family and will tell it again as a reminder. We would all go to Spetses for Easter in the family home and Auntie Marika, who was a stupendous cook as are all the women in my family, would lay out all the amazing lent food. We would eat our faces off and lose weight. After a week in Spetses prior to Easter I would go back to Athens at least two kilograms lighter.