The Meaning of Fasting

polski_stol_wigilijny_fot_arkadiusz_ziolek_en_01459007_0002-s.jpg, default, Polish Christmas Eve table, photo: Arkadiusz Ziółek / East News

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Recipes

Fancy a slice of apple cheese smelling of cinnamon, cardamon, cloves and nutmeg or allspice? What to expect during a family banquet of minimum 12 different dishes based on fish and veggies only? Some of the most astonishing Polish recipes and culinary customs were created to allow strict observance of long and very restricted religious fasting, obligatory for Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians.

In the Middle Ages, Catholics were supposed to abstain from meat and any food obtained from warm blooded creatures for almost half a year. Then, especially in the 17th and 18h century, some of the restrictions were lifted but fasting was still practiced for a third of the year and, in some homes, two or four days a week.

The limitations relate to both quality and quantity of food that was to be consumed or not. For example, in older, more austere versions, no dairy products were to be eaten, including eggs, milk or butter. Every vegan would be thrilled to see how many old Polish recipes focused on almonds or veggies only, and Stanisław Czerniecki’s book is not an exception. However, there were some curious products on the list of what was allowed such as beaver (especially the animal’s tail), and some water birds that were assuming ‘fishlike behaviour’ such as swimming or diving in the water.

Cover and page from Stanisław Czerniecki’s ‘Compendium Ferculorum’, 1682, ed. Jarosław Dumanowski & Magdalena Spychaj. Photo: Wilanów Palace Museum

The bans did not include hot and expensive spices and seasoning, ever so popular among the nobility. What’s more, fasting did not always mean abstaining from entertaining or partying – so court kitchen managers and banquet planners had to be ready to marvel their patrons and work miracles within the restrictions. In a way, to the Baroque sensibility, it was even more thrilling to prepare fake meat, eggs or cheese and play with the banqueters’ expectations. As a consequence, you may find a recipe for żur, fermented rye flour soup, served with an egg made of fish, with a yolk that was bright yellow thanks to saffron and other species.

Today, the doctrine is not as strict as it used to be, but there is one, very special night when the old rules on how to structure a family banquet on a fasting day are happily observed even among less religious people. It is during the Christmas Eve dinner. According to the tradition, there should be twelve dishes served as a symbol of the twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ. The customs require the minimum number of dishes and not the maximum so even now, in some homes, dinners on the 24th of December resemble the Renaissance or Baroque culinary extravaganza – at least in spirit if not the form.

A list to choose from for a Christmas Eve menu taken from an 1860 cookbook by Lucyna Ćwierczakiewiczowa, entitled: 365 dinners for 5 zloty.

• sago soup with wine, barszcz with mushroom dumplings, almond soup, mushroom soup

• pike in aspic jelly, pike steamed in butter, pike with mushroom or parsley sauce

• pike-perch or perch with eggs

• groat with mushroom sauce, green peas with toasts, Italian pasta, saffron and chocolate rice

• carp or bream in grey sauce with raisins

• pasta with plums and pears, kale with chestnuts

• fried tench wit red or white cabbage, fried pike or crucian carp

• pudding (legumina) with apples, pudding (budyń) with chaudeau sauce, pudding (legumina) with juice

• pudding with poppy seeds, lazanki pasta, cookies and buns with poppy seeds, apples, nuts, gingerbread, figs and dates

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