FASTING AND FOOD HABITS IN
THE EASTERN ORTHODOX CHURCH
Antonia-Leda Matalas, Eleni Tourlouki, and Chrystalleni Lazarou
This chapter examines fasting and the influence of Greek Orthodoxy on food habits from three perspectives: from literature and the literary, from information gleaned from account books of the nineteenth century reflecting ordinary and elite habits, and finally from an examination of the so-called Mediterranean diet as practiced in the mid twentieth century. Concluding remarks consider the impact these traditions may have had on present dietary patterns.
THE INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN
ORTHODOX FAITH ON FOOD HABITS
The following passage has been paraphrased from the Greek novel The Two Loves by Theotokis (1873–1923) and illustrates the importance of voluntary fasting as a special form of devotion in the Orthodox Church.1 In the novel Arghyris Spatharos is an artist who paints saints and lives in a small village with his wife and son on the Greek island of Corfu. The story opens with a discussion of Easter food and what they plan on eating.
“What did you cook today?” asked the artist.
“For us, Easter food, but for you, who fasts for her sake, you will taste bread and olives,” the wife replied humbly.
“OK … ,” he replied contently. “And our son, he is downstairs?”
“Yes,” she replied.
They both went downstairs to the basement. There, in a row, against the wall, stood three large barrels full of wine. Next to them, two containers—the first contained oil, the other, olives. Opposite the wall, through the door, was a table, on it, a lonely plate with olives and a loaf of bread. Sitting, relaxed on a log, was the son of the artist, and with a spoon he was mixing food and tasting it carefully, checking if it was seasoned well, as he chewed his mouthful. He was young, twenty-two years old, with a thin moustache, and he wore “European” clothing, as did all the youngsters in the village.
“Welcome master …” the son said with a grin, as he turned his head.
“Hello George,” his father replied kindly, as he sat down at the table, and began crossing himself slowly.
George poured the mixture into a deep bowl, while the old man cut the bread, which was yellow inside like gold. George brought it to the table and sat across from the old man. His mother sat down close to him, bringing a large pitcher full of diluted wine and only one cup. The food was red with chili pepper; it was steaming and smelled good. The mother and son crossed themselves, and each took a piece of bread, and the three began to eat.
The old man chewed his bread and olives slowly with his damaged teeth, while the others, first the mother then the son, sharing a single spoon, took from the deep bowl, and dipped their bread into the red sauce.
“Master,” said the son as if his first hunger pains were appeased. “Won’t you taste some of ours?”
“No my child,” he refused. “You eat, and don’t you worry about me.”
“And what would I gain if I gave up now? When I was young, I liked living the good life, but since then, I have devoted myself to the Madonna—I worship her name—I will fast until I depict her. The Virgin will help me, and I will finish the icon quickly, and there will be miracles for the Greeks …” said the old man.
The old man expresses his love and devotion to the Virgin Mary by taking an oath to fast while painting the icon. An oath calls on one or more gods to witness an assertion, a denial, or a promise.2 The oath he took was a promise that forbade him from eating certain foods until he finished an icon of the Annunciation (Evangelismos). The old man kept his oath strictly and dismissed tantalizing offers of food made by his son and wife. He no longer desired the “good” life and instead swore to fast for her sake. Though in Greek Orthodox practice there are three lengthy regularly scheduled fasts during the year, the faithful may also choose a voluntary fast in order to seek divine favor. Pious individuals with various afflictions may fast in hope of relief. The old man in this story fasts for the sake of the Virgin Mary because he believes she will perform miracles for the Greeks on the Ionian Islands, who at the time were under British rule.
For lunch he eats bread and olives, observing a form of xerophagia—a strict fast in which one eats only “dry” food. “Dry” fasts exclude olive oil which is permitted on most fasting days. In effect when individuals abstain from olive oil, they forgo all main courses since olive oil is the foundation of traditional Greek cooking. Moreover, the fact that only one cup is brought out suggests that he also abstains from wine. Although permitted on most fasting days, there are some during which both oil and wine are prohibited.3 But in this case, the more extreme form of fasting is a conscious personal choice.
The passage, written at the turn of the twentieth century, depicts traditional attitudes toward fasting. The old man practices self-control as a means of achieving perfection in his portrait of the Madonna and with this hopes to improve the circumstances of his compatriots through the intercession of the Virgin. Self-denial lies at the heart of Greek religious doctrines concerning food. The following excerpt further illustrates this notion. A Greek priest, Papa-Nicholas Planas, recites the following conversation he had with a nun who visited him on Clean Monday to confess.4
“Did you eat meat during the ‘Cheese Week’ my child?”
“Yes, and I ate today as well father!”
Priest Nicholas was in awe … since he and his companions, for three days, were not allowed to put a piece of crumb in their mouths, not even water!
“What can we have done father, let them throw food away?”
He says to her, “My child you have weighed food on one side of the scale and your soul on the other, and the weight of scale tilted towards the food?”
These two passages show the significance of fasting in the life of an Orthodox Christian. Fasting serves the dual purpose of preparing the faithful physically and mentally. It cleanses the body and soul while people anticipate an upcoming feast, helping them to focus on its true meaning.5 True fasting is not merely a physical practice, but involves spiritual transformation as well. Self-restriction in Christianity constitutes a chosen lifestyle that enables disciples to bolster their willpower, but also to “reach” God.6
FOOD HABITS AND EASTERN ORTHODOXY
IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
Food choices are largely shaped by one’s culture. Orthodox dietary rules require periodic vegetarianism through the avoidance of all animal food, with the exception of mollusks and crustaceans, which are permitted on many fasting days.7 Some plant-based foods such as wine and vegetable oil are also prohibited during some fasting periods. Historically, there has not been a general consensus among church leaders on exactly which foods were permitted during particular fasting days. The frequently revised editions of ecclesiastical rules and related literature reflect this confusion. A long-lasting dialogue has created controversy over which foods may be consumed during Wednesdays and Fridays and during the four Lents.8 For instance, a number of theological texts written in the Byzantine era ruled that fish eggs do not constitute a “pure” food suitable for the fast. This view however, was in direct contrast to the common practice of lay people in Greece, for whom fish roe is an important food even during Lent. Though fasting proscriptions on seafood and plant-based foods (oil and wine) are less stringent, there has always been consensus on the avoidance of meat and meat products.
The Greek Orthodox religious calendar includes four extended fasting periods before each of the principal feasts: Lent (preceding Christmas—in the West called Advent), Great Lent (preceding Easter), Fasting of the Apostles (after Pentecost), and the two weeks preceding the feast of Assumption of the Theotokos [Mary] on August 15. In addition, meat is prohibited throughout the year on Wednesdays and Fridays. Fasting is prescribed for a total period of 150–180 days a year. The duration of fasting periods can range from seven weeks, in the case of the Great Lent, to a single day.
Though fasting has been a regular practice among Christians throughout history, few accounts survive that describe the manner and to what extent religion has influenced the food habits of ordinary people. Two nineteenth-century logs provide detailed information on the aforementioned issues. The first is the log of a Greek merchant brig, the Konstantinos, that was discovered on the Aegean island of Chios.9 This katastichon contains a register of all expenses, including detailed food purchases, supplied for the crew throughout their Mediterranean travels, from August 1865 to January 1868. The Konstantinos was officially registered as a Greek ship, and all the sailors were Greek Orthodox. Date-specific food purchases furnished by the ship’s log can be used to determine how religious practices influenced the crew’s everyday eating habits. Detailed procurement data including dates, quantities, and regions where items were purchased have been described previously. The second log is the katastichon of an affluent urban family from the island of Syros written in 1837.10 It should be noted that food patterns recorded in the second log do not exemplify conventional eating patterns of the general populace at that time, but food habits of the elite upper class.
In contrast, the sailor’s eating habits while in port can be taken as being representative enough of the habits of the common male population. The most commonly recorded purchase was bread, in frequency and sheer volume, compared to all other food and nonfood commodities, amounting roughly to 450 grams per sailor daily. The average daily intake of fresh meat has also been estimated at about 100 grams per sailor during nonfasting periods. Eggs contributed little to the sailor’s diet; only ten dozen eggs were purchased throughout the twenty-nine-month voyage. A variety of preserved fish is recorded in the log, among them salt cod, salted and smoked mackerel, tiny salted female mackerel, salted sardines (consumed most frequently), and smoked little tunny (lakerda), while unidentified fresh fish was also regularly consumed while at port. Cheese was also a typical component of the crew’s diet and was purchased in larger quantities when in the Black Sea and the lower Danube. Potatoes were eaten when the ship anchored in the Aegean Sea and in the Western Mediterranean, but not in the Bosporus or in the Black Sea. The crew consumed several types of legumes, haricot beans, chickpeas, fava beans, and lentils. Vegetable and fruit consumption varied according to season. During winter months, cabbage, celery, endive, leek, wild greens, and other unidentified “salad items” were consumed, while eggplant, okra, pepper, tomato, zucchini, figs, and grapes were more frequently consumed during summer months. Eggplant, peppers, and tomato were commonly purchased with meat or intestines, suggesting that the sailors often cooked meat and vegetable stews. During stays at port, wine consumption ranged from 50 to 80 grams per sailor, while raki (a type of eau de vie) and rum were also purchased regularly.
The log of Konstantinos also includes dates of food purchases, allowing for a comparison of foods procured during fasting and nonfasting periods. Purchases made during the Great Lent in 1867 (February 28 to April 15) and after (April 16 through April 30, 1867) reveal the effect of fasting on the sailors’ dietary pattern. It should be noted that during the seven weeks of Great Lent preceding Easter the diet should have only included legumes, vegetables, fresh and dried fruit, bread, olives, nuts and sesame, and invertebrate seafood.11 All other foods of animal origin would have been prohibited.
A distinct difference between foods procured on fasting and nonfasting days emerged from this analysis. Bread, for example, was purchased thirty-seven times during Great Lent but only six times in the fifteen-day period following the fast. This is not surprising considering fasting restrictions, there would have been a need to substitute calories lost from meat and animal products with large quantities of other foods. Procurement data suggests that bread was one of these; it was the most frequently purchased item. Daily use of bread holds significant functional meaning in the Greek diet. Bread could accompany olives, cheese, tomatoes, fruits, coffee, or wine to form a proper meal and bread was at the core of traditional eating habits. J. L. Stephans presents a tourist account, about a man traveling with two Greek boatmen from the island of Zakynthos to the Greek mainland, that illustrates the traditional reliance on bread.12 In this case, bread with eggs constituted the whole meal:
We had been on and almost in the water since daylight, exposed to a keen wind and a drizzling rain, and now, at eleven o’clock, could probably have eaten several chickens apiece; But nothing came amiss, and, as we could not get chickens, we took eggs, which for lack of any vessel to boil them in, were roasted. We placed a huge loaf of bread in the middle of the floor, and seated ourselves around it, spreading out so as to keep the eggs from rolling away, and each hewing off bread for himself.
Seafood, in particular fish roe, caviar, mussels, and oysters were also an important component in the sailors’ diets during Great Lent. Specifically, oysters, and mussels were purchased ten and twenty-three times respectively during this period and then never again to the end of this particular trip. The katastichon records three purchases of fresh fish during the Great Lent in the year 1867. The church permitted fish to be consumed on two occasions during the Lent: on March 25, the day of Annunciation of the Virgin, and on Palm Sunday.
From the katastichon of the Konstantinos, it becomes clear that the sailors ate more olives during the Great Lent compared to the nonfasting periods. In general, the Greeks ate olives throughout the year, but more so during fasting periods, even when olive oil was not permitted. In the past, olives formed, together with bread, the main meal for the peasants working in the fields. According to Christian Orthodox doctrines, olive oil and wine were the only vegetable foods the devout should remove from their diet during Lent days. The Greek diet was, above all, characterized by the use of olive oil. It was highly esteemed and considered a very nutritious food by the Greeks since medieval times, but, at the same time, it was an expensive commodity since its production required a low-yield and laborious process.13 Olive oil’s liberal consumption was considered a privilege only for rich people. Olive oil was sold in the Greek cities at prices 2 to 4 times higher than the price of meat, 1.5 times higher than the price of cheese, and 5 to 12 times higher than the price of wine.14 The widespread belief that spilling olive oil brings bad luck illustrates the scarcity of the product.15 Archival sources from the monastery of St. George Ragousi, located on the island of Chios, from the mid eighteenth century provide evidence that the quantity of olive oil secured for the operational needs of the church (i.e., as fuel for oil candles) surpassed the quantity that was used for the nourishment of the ten monks (61.5 kg/year versus 46 kg/year).16 It has thus been proposed that the tradition of consuming the olive, but not olive oil, during Lenten fasts was intended to promote greater demand for the raw material, the olive, which was more abundant, at the expense of the secondary product, the oil, which was of limited availability.17
Sesame, in the form of the sweet sesame paste known in the East as halvas, was one of the most prevalent Lenten foods. Halvas, however, was eaten only during the winter and spring fasts, and never during the summer, as summer heat prevents its preservation. Other foods that were purchased more often during Lent fasting were lemons (likely to have been used to season seafood), wild greens, and various other salad items. Eggs were not eaten during fasting periods. However, eggs purchased on Saturday April 15, that is, the very last day of the Great Lent, were in all likelihood used as part of the Easter tradition. Hard-boiled eggs are dyed red on Thursday prior to Easter day, the day Jesus was nailed to the cross, to represent the blood of Christ that was shed.
Fruit procurement data during the fifteen-day fasting period of the Dormition of Mary and the subsequent fifteen-day nonfasting period have been examined. Figs, grapes, and melon were all purchased more frequently during the fasting period compared to the subsequent fifteen-day nonfasting period. Watermelon was the only fruit purchased more frequently during nonfasting days (once) than fasting days (twice). Fruit, naturally, was appreciated most during summer fasting periods, and, throughout the log, fruit procurement patterns are indicative of seasonality. During the Great Lent (February 27 through April 15, 1967), fruit was not procured.
The log of Konstantinos clearly documents a shift in purchases from nonfasting to fasting foods during Great Lent. Bread, seafood, leafy greens, wild greens, fruits, salad items, and halvas characterize the food purchases throughout the forty-nine-day fasting period. The pattern of the Greek sailors can be compared and contrasted to the pattern of an affluent urban family that lived on the island of Syros in the Aegean Sea three decades earlier. Food habits of the urban family have been analyzed and interpreted from a procurement log containing information on everyday purchases of food and nonfood items.18 The log consists of forty-one handwritten pages detailing items, prices, and dates of purchases made from Monday, December 28, 1836, through December 28, 1837. The family consisted of six members, and resided in the city Hermoupolis, the capital city of Syros.
The procurement data of this urban family reveal food habits that differ considerably from those of the sailors. The consumption of meat (264 times a year), followed by butter and caviar, were most characteristic of this family’s food habits. Contribution of meat to dietary regimen varies according to the economic environment and the degree of affluence. Meat consumption patterns of this particular family correspond to a high level of affluence. Meat was commonly consumed with rice (227 times a year). Occasionally, rice was eaten with butter or tomatoes as a meal on its own, possibly during periods of fasting. Available evidence suggests that rice consumption was associated with a high socioeconomic status on mainland Greece. The present family had a live-in worker, which may also suggest economic affluence. After rice, meat dishes were most commonly served with potatoes (74 times a year) and pasta (28 times a year), however, during warmer months, vegetables such as eggplant, zucchini, and okra accompanied meat dishes. Vegetables were eaten frequently; throughout the year, they were purchased 680 times (otherwise quantified as two purchases of vegetables per day) and were usually eaten raw in the form of a salad or cooked in a stew. Tomatoes (128 times a year) were eaten regularly, followed by leafy greens, potatoes, and okra. Green vegetables and salads, of which the islands of the Aegean have a plentiful supply, varied according to season. Wild greens, however, are never mentioned in this log. We know that wild greens were sold in urban markets throughout the Greek mainland and the Aegean Islands in the nineteenth century, but were generally considered a lesser food item by urban Greeks.
Procurement data suggests that the present urban family did not strictly adhere to fasting prescriptions and fasted no more than 30 of the 150 fasting days. Intake of caviar and halvas, foods considered appropriate for fasting, reflect changes in consumption between fasting and nonfasting periods. Around the months of April, August, and December (the months that correlate to the three lengthy fasts), intake of caviar and halvas increased. The log reports no consumption of halvas during the summer months, which is expected, as it is a difficult food to preserve in warm conditions. The family ate fish frequently, roughly once every three days. Caviar was consumed 122 times throughout the year, and was sometimes purchased twice in the same day. Wine accompanied meals daily. Fruit was consumed 179 times a year, whereas grapes (77 times a year) and figs (36 times a year) were consumed the most. In particular, grapes and figs comprised more than half (56 percent) of all fruit consumed by the family throughout the year. Annual consumption of fruit is a reflection of availability. Figs and grapes tolerate the dry Greek climate and have been traditional and abundantly available fruits of the Mediterranean since time immemorial. Additionally, though the family consumed butter and oil frequently throughout the year, the intake of butter declined, while oil intake increased during fasting periods. Butter, though preferred by this affluent family during fasts, replaced Noby the traditional olive oil, a vegetable fat. In summary, animal products, namely, meat, fish, and butter, dominated the diet of this prosperous urban family, while fasting was seldom observed.
FOOD HABITS AND EASTERN ORTHODOXY IN
THE MID TWENTIETH CENTURY
Greeks have received widespread attention during the past decades owing to their traditional, semivegetarian diet. Information on the diet followed in Greece in the late 1940s through the early 1960s has formed the basis of an eating pattern that epidemiologists have coined the Mediterranean Diet,19 touted as the prototype of a prudent and health-promoting lifestyle alternative. Two surveys, the Survey of Crete and the Seven Countries Study, explored food habits among peasants on the islands of Crete and Corfu and have substantiated the notion of a healthful Greek-Mediterranean Diet.
The Survey of Crete: 1948
The Survey of Crete was conducted by representatives from the Rockefeller Foundation from May 19 to November 15, 1948.20 It was an investigation into the feasibility of raising the standards of living in an undeveloped area and explored ways in which knowledge and skills from industrialized countries could benevolently assist underdeveloped areas such as Crete. According to seven-day diet records, foods of vegetable origin, such as cereals, vegetables, fruits, and olive oil, primarily characterize the Cretan diet. Olives were used throughout the year in large quantities and typically consumed as oil. Grapes were eaten in substantial amounts, in addition to other fresh fruits such as apples, melons, and pomegranates. During the winter months, pulses and nuts were consumed considerably, potatoes were used extensively as well. Meat, fish, milk, eggs, and sweets were scarcely consumed. Including only a small amount of meat, poultry, game, or fish in various dishes was common practice. Rice and milk were considered important commodities in Crete, the former recognized as a treatment for gastrointestinal disease, and the latter may have gained significance because of extensive child-feeding programs that had been established in the area. Hondros (crushed wheat and milk, salted, cooked together, and then spread out in thin sheets and dried in the sun) was consumed by three-fifths of all families. Because of fuel and cooking equipment scarcity, there was a tendency to cook one-dish meals. Main cooking methods included stewing and boiling, and approximately half the families cooked once daily. When tomatoes were unavailable, tomato paste was used to cook vegetables and stews. It was recorded that Cretans had the habit of dipping bread into the sauce of stewed or braised dishes. Seasonal fresh fruit was the preferred dessert at the end of the meal.
The researchers observed that the degree of observing fasts varied from family to family and by age group. Children were often not expected to observe long or strict fasts, whereas the older people were more likely to fast for lengthy periods. Some carried out fasting on Wednesdays and Fridays, but this may had been merely abstention from meat. The following (in decreasing order of importance) were named as foods eaten by the Cretans during fasts: fresh vegetables, including tomatoes and potatoes, legumes, olives, bread, rice, and pasta, fish roe, shrimp, squid, honey, halvas, must syrups, fresh fruit, tea and sugar, sesame paste, and hondros.
The Seven Countries Study: 1960s
The Seven Countries Study, initiated in the late 1950s, investigated the relationship between food intake patterns and long-term incidence of coronary heart disease and overall mortality. The study included sixteen cohorts from seven countries.21 The Greek sample consisted of individuals from the islands of Crete and Corfu, Greece. Dietary data showed that Southern European cohorts, including Crete and Corfu, were characterized by a dietary pattern high in cereals, legumes, vegetable products, oils, and wine, whereas intakes of meat and animal products were low. Further analysis revealed that the main source of fat was olive oil. Throughout the duration of this study, data did not differentiate between fasters and nonfasters, and, therefore, the effect of Greek Orthodox fasting practices on dietary habits remains unknown. More recently, Professor Aravanis (the investigator who designed the Seven Countries Study methodology) confirmed that fasting practices might have significantly influenced dietary habits. Following a personal communication with Professor Aravanis, Sarri and Kafatos report that 60 percent of the Cretan study participants were fasters who not only fasted during the seven weeks of Lent but also strictly adhered to other Greek Orthodox Church fasting guidelines.22
Prevailing dietary patterns in the mid-twentieth century suggest a relationship between the Orthodox religious dietary pattern and a traditional diet whereby meat and animal products are eaten in small amounts and foods of vegetable origin are eaten regularly. However, the surveys did not record any information regarding fasting compliance, and it remains unclear to what extent observed patterns were influenced by Orthodox fasting decrees.
FASTING PRACTICES IN THE LATE TWENTIETH AND EARLY TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Fasting is still a common practice among Greek followers of the Eastern Orthodox Church. On the basis of various observational studies conducted since the 1980s that examined fasting practices among Greeks, we may conclude, though, that the length of periods observed is less than that of previous decades.
During the years 1988–90 we conducted a field study on the island of Chios in the Aegean Sea with the purpose of investigating the eating habits of rural and urban residents.23 Our findings indicate that fasting practices differed according to economic environment. Fasting was a common practice among women who lived in the poor, mountainous areas of North Chios, as two-thirds of them reported observing at least fifty days of fasting year-round. These poor peasant women also adhered to a weekly “protocol” of food choice for planning their family’s main dish during nonfast periods: they typically cooked meat or poultry as their main meal on Sundays and Thursdays, fish on Saturdays and Tuesdays, and legumes or vegetables (stewed) on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. This customary protocol facilitated observing the fasting rules on Wednesdays and Fridays. Peasant women in the prosperous villages in the South and urban women living in the island’s main town, on the other hand, exhibited different rates of fasting; only one-third of these women reported having fasted for more than fifty days during the previous year. Among the Chian men, fasting was even less common: only one out of six, among both peasant and urban men, had observed more than fifty days of fasting during the previous year, while the majority reported fewer than twenty-five days of fasting.
Further information on the fasting practices of contemporary urban Greeks is provided by the ATTICA study, a Greek epidemiological survey that collected dietary and other lifestyle information in a representative sample of some three thousand adult men and women living in the greater Athens area in the early 2000s.24 Almost half of urban men and women observed religious fasts of just one or two days, while only 4 percent reported having fasted more than thirty days during the year.25
The CYKIDS, a study that was conducted in 2005 among 1,140 school children between nine to thirteen years old in Cyprus provides information on how fasting rules are put into practice among the very young.26 The findings show that one out of four Greek-Cypriot children is a regular faster. Regular fasters were classified as children who reported that, during the previous year, they had observed most of the fast days of Lent and Great Lent as well as Fridays and Wednesdays. It is informative to examine how frequencies of food consumption between children who only fasted occasionally (nonfasters) and children who were regular fasters differed.27 Looking at the 0.05 level of statistical significance, we found the following differences: children who were regular fasters consumed eggs, milk, fish and seafood, vegetables, and soy protein products more often compared to nonfasters, while they consumed sweets and various convenience foods, such as candy, chocolate, and “junk” food, less often. No differences were found with regard to the use of meat, legumes, bread, and fruit. At first glance, it may seem that, compared to their counterparts who do not fast regularly, children who fast regularly consume eggs, milk, and fish more often, whereas they also consume meat as often. One may argue, however, that fasting among these children and their families is also indicative of adherence to more traditional dietary habits. This trend is expressed by a decreased use of processed, convenience items, such as potato chips and candies, rather than by a reduction in conventional animal products, such as meat, fish, and milk.
The CYKIDS study also documents the use of novel Lent foods; children substituted soy milk and soy meat substitutes for dairy milk and meat during fasting periods. Among children who fasted regularly, 14 percent reported drinking soy milk at least twice a week as opposed to only 6.5 percent among children who were classified as nonfasters. For use of soy meat substitutes by the children, similar rates of 16 and 7 percent, respectively, were found.
The data indicates that, in contemporary time, a rather small portion of the Greek population complies with the traditional fasting regime of the Orthodox Church. The evidence suggests that urban Greeks are less likely to observe extended periods of fasting compared to their rural counterparts. In addition, the rules about foods permitted during Lents have been enriched with novel interpretations such as the use of vegetable meat and dairy substitutes.
Nineteenth-century dietary patterns compare with those of the early twentieth century where meat was seldom consumed and bread, wine, and olive oil were key components of the diet. The eastern Mediterranean dietary reliance on plant food sources is dictated by the dry climate and mountainous landscape, which can only support small-scale husbandry. Agriculture in this part of the world developed at a very early time and has since dominated peoples’ livelihoods and customs. Ancient religious rituals and practices were preserved during the Christian era, and they were given new meanings. What’s more, the Orthodox Church introduced an annual schedule of fasting that concentrates on the frequent avoidance of animal food. The periodic abstinence from meat and dairy is viewed as a form of asceticism to strengthen personal willpower and discipline, enabling one to overcome his or her passions. Through this the Church also implemented a policy that may have sustained other natural resources and inadvertently contributed to overall health.
Notes
1. Konstantinos Theotokis, Oi Dyo Agapes [The two loves] (Athens: Epikairotita, 1997 [1910]).
2. Mathew Dillon, “By Gods, Tongues, and Dogs: The Use of Oaths in Aristophanic Comedy,” Greece and Rome 42, no. 2 (1995): 135–151.
3. Wine and olive oil are forbidden on all Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the year. The only exceptions are the following: Wednesdays and Fridays of Bright Week, after Christmas, and of the Publican and Pharisee Week (three weeks before the beginning of Great Lent), after Easter until Pentecost, on certain name days of Great Saints, during the Cheese fare (the week before the beginning of Great Lent), Christmas, and in the years when the Dormition of the Theodokos happens to be on Wednesday and Friday. We are thankful to Father Ioannis Kyprianou (Saint Nicholaos, Engomi, Nicosia, Cyprus) and to Mr. Xenophon Lazarou (Nicosia, Cyprus) who provided the information on fasting days and periods.
4. Nikolaos Pournaras, Philokalia (Thessaloniki: Pournara, 2002), 287–288.
5. Sotiropoulos, “The Pre-holiday Fasting of the Orthodox Christian Church.”
6. Jackson, “Fasting.”
7. The avoidance of all animal and animal products is completed on the following fasting days and periods (with few exceptions throughout the year): Wednesdays and Fridays, the Great Lent (forty-nine days prior to Easter), the Lent (forty days, November15 through December 23), Fasting of the Apostles (the period after Pentecost until June 28; length varies from one to six weeks), Fasting of the Dormition of the Theotokos (from August 1 through August 14), January 5—Theophany (Epiphany) Eve, August 29: the Beheading of Saint John the Baptist, and September 14—the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.
8. Matthaiou, “Dietary Taboos During the Ottoman Occupation.”
9. The katastichon is available in the archives of Chios, found in the Korai Library, city of Chora, island of Chios (document accession number: 1225B). Matalas and Grivetti, “The Diet of Nineteenth-Century Greek Sailors.”
10. Kremmydas, “Urban Dietary Patterns.”
11. Imellos and Polymerou-Kamilaki, “Traditional Material Life of the Greek Populous.”
12. Stephans, Incidents of Travel.
13. Lydia Sapounaki-Drakaki and Zenon Mathas-Demathas, “Olive Oil in Nineteenth-Century Greece: Consumption and Prices,” in Olive Tree and Olive Oil (Athens: ETBA Foundation, 1996), 155–163.
14. Efthemia Liata, “Prices and Commodities in Athens (1839–1846)” (Athens: National Bank Educational Institute, 1984), 92–106.
15. Philip Argenti, Manuscripts of Chian Folklore, vol. 2 (Chios: Historical Archives of Chios, 1890).
16. Provided in the Monastery Code of Saint Georgios Ragousis for the years 1711–1866, Historical Archives of Chios, manuscript no. 215.
17. Matthaiou, “Olive Oil and the Fast.”
18. Kremmydas,“Urban Dietary Patterns.”
19. Willet, “The Mediterranean Diet.”
20. G. Leland Allbaugh and George Soule, Crete: A Case Study of an Underdeveloped Area (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953), 107.
21. Mennoti et al. “Food Intake Patterns and Twenty-Five-Year Mortality from Coronary Heart Disease.”
22. Sarri and Kafatos, “The Seven Countries Study in Crete.”
23. Matalas, Franti, and Grivetti, “Comparative Study of Diets and Disease Prevalence.”
24. Panagiotakos et al., “Status and Management of Blood Lipids.”
25. Personal communication with Demosthenes Panagiotakos.
26. Lazarou, Panagiotakos, and Matalas, “Dietary and Other Lifestyle Characteristics of Cypriot Children.”
27. Chrystalleni Lazarou, unpublished data.