In the Greek world, wrapped and stuffed foods are prominent features at Christmas meals and New Year’s banquets. In pastoral and agricultural societies stuffed foods link human and agricultural fertility, the life of the individual and the cycle of the…
GREEK EASTER BREADS
Easter preparations begin on Holy Thursday when the traditional eggs are dyed red and sweet Easter bread may be baked. Lampropsomo (=bright bread) or lamprokouloura (=bright circular bread) is rich in eggs and butter (foods forbidden during Lent) and is…
BOURANI, A CELEBRATION OF FERTILITY
A wild, Dionysiac festival of fertility, found under the misleading name bourani, marks the beginning of Lent in Tyrnavos. Bourani is a thick, oil-less, spinach-based soup served on Clean Monday. During the cooking of the soup the bourani- people tease…
FISH ROE
Τhough I was raised in a non religious middle class family, the consumption of special Lenten foods didn’t differ from other middle class housholds, apart from the fact that it had to do with folk rituals rather than religion. When I was a child, crab meat, black caviar,…
FOOD FOR THE DEAD
As a puff of wind, the psyche leaves the body at the moment of death. Marble grave stele of a little girl, ca. 450–440 B.C (commons.wikimedia.org/) Then, either enjoying the easy life in the Elysian Fields or wandering as weeping shadow among the…