Fasting is known for many religions, and the act of fasting is mostly the same. It asks the faithful to abstain or reduce from some or all food, drinks, or both, for a period. The religious reasons for this exercise are simple to explain. Through the withdraw of food and associated hunger we should be humble and graceful as we should not take the abundance of food for granted. Another more scientific explanation of these “fasting routine” was a practical reason: if people abstain from meats and fishes and thus restrict hunting and fishing it will give our nature a natural break to recover. Note that most deer give birth in spring. Needless to say, that by following this schedule and regime one will practice a natural diet that existed for hundreds of years.
Different religions have different fasting rules and guidelines that need to be followed. Here we follow the Russian Orthodox fasting calendar as shown above and you can download here: Fasting calendar
Every year my wife and so are millions of people willingly follow religious fasting procedures.
Although I am never participating in the Lent, I am trying to follow the fasting calendar of the Russian Orthodox Church (above) by cooking dinner for my wife according to the given guidelines. As you notice on the schedule, the dates marked red are vegan days without the use of oils (mainly olive oil) and wine. Olive oil and wine were once considered to be luxury foods and because people should be humble during the “lent”, they were asked to restrain from these foods and beverages. The green category is mostly the classic vegan food as it proposes to restrain from any animal products. On the blue days, fish was allowed, but the rest of the diet is vegan – I think one could call this a pescatarian-vegan diet. And finally, yellow is a classic Lacto-ovo-vegetarian, that allows dairy products and eggs. My wife and I decided to go this year without any oil, and as you can imagine, this is more of a challenge, then you might think. Cooking dinner for religious fasting is the subject of this blog.
Please leave a comment and share with us your own experience. This site is new, and we will enter more cooking and baking recipes that my wife and I collected over the years.
Here are some dinner menus which will constantly be updated once I cooked a new dish:
Potato patties stuffed with mushrooms, creamy cashew sauce, and homemade tofu
Creamy Cashew Sauce
Gluten-free Sweet Potato Avocado “Toast”
Fasting Food
Vegan Salads
Vegan Soups
Check out more fasting meals in our fasting menu archive