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Foods associated with the feast of Annunciation in Byzantine monasteries
Monastery of Vatopedi. The dining room. (Photo credit: http://www.orthodoxos.com.gr/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?t=1884#p7510) " The feast of the Annunciation on March 25 was bound to occur sometime during...
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A snake on your pie
Greek Christmas breads and New Year pies have often impressive decorations such as serpentine figures made of dough. The serpent is a survival of the doctrine for the oikouros ofis*, the ancient...
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Byzantine dreams and white bread.
....Getting or eating or merely seeing a loaf of white bread signifies harshness and strife for any dreamer.....If someone dreams of eating white bread he will get profit sufficient for life's...
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A Taste of the Past: Pastirma
A large number of the refugees from the 1922 Greek - Turkish population exchange were Karamanlides, Cappadocian Greeks who only spoke the Turkish language but wrote it in Greek characters. They left...
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Easter bread and the number 8
Symbols for warding off the evil influences and christian symbols play an important part in the Greek festive breads. In parts of Greece, the early Christian tradition of number 8, symbol of Jesus...
View ArticleMagic rain and the wish for water
Rituals of Magical - Rain Making in Modern and Ancient Greece: A Comparative Approachand From Modern Greek Carnivals to the Masks of Dionysos and other Divinities in Ancient Greece are two very...
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Ancient Eros
Alexis, dwelling on the aphrodisiac properties of bulbs, says: "Pinnas, crayfish, bulbs, snails, buccina, eggs, extremities, and all that. FIf anyone in love with a girl shall find any drugs more...
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Christmas with the Emperor
The Byzantine celebration of Christmas attracted the attention of the Arab Harun ibn Yahya, who had been captured by the Byzantines in 911/12. Leo VI, the Wise, had already introduced an innovation...
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O kourabiedes!!
Grandma, may I have a kourabiedaki? (kourabiedaki is the diminutive of kourabies) This was my pre Christmas refrain as a child. A kourabiedaki, as if the diminutive word could make the kourabies look...
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Ensuring abundance of food~ Polysporia
November sowning seeds. Manuscript, 1346, Vatopedi monasteryReligious rituals and symbolic practices in which food is used to secure the future harvest are still important in Greece. Their parallels...
View ArticleLead poisoning in the ancient world
..Lead is one of the seven metals known in ancient times. It has been mined and used by man since at least the 4th millennium BC. But, it is very toxic. When the body is exposed to lead, it can act as...
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Sun dried tomato paste- My precious.
Sun dried tomato on a slice of bread..... or how a poor man's food can turn to a delicious and provocative appetizer. All I- and you- need are: sun dried tomato paste (I make it every year), homemade...
View ArticleRecording food culture of Amari Valley, Crete
A few years ago, I gave an interview about food culture of Amari Valley (Crete).Since we are two weeks before the 2nd Symposium of Greek Gastronomy, which will be held in Amari, you might be interested...
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It is a man's job
Ahhh pilafi, that most wonderful of Cretan foods! But if you have to cook it in really large amounts, which would require physical strength, then you need a man.... Of course, it helps to have a good...
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Ancient bread- baking method
My new baby, patiently waiting for me.My baby is a replica of a5th century pnigeus, a portable earthenware oven. Its name comes from the verb πνίγω, to choke, strangle. Hippo, a presocratic Greek...
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Dietary rules for Holy Saturday in the Byzantine Monastic Foundation...
According to the "Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents: A Complete Translation of the Surviving Founders’ Typika and Testaments"(1), "In Stoudios [A30], the monks begin the vesper service at the...
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Carnival
Oh yes, this restaurant bill is a handmade carnival costume which took its inspiration from an original bill of 1982. hors-d'œuvres beef, grilled potatoes, mushrooms antipasti coke, gazoza, biral,...
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Food for the dead (3)
Tsiknopempti, the Thursday of the second week of Greek Carnival (Apokries), is surrounded with the smells and smokes of grilled meat and burning fat. Since it is believed that the souls of the dead...
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The foot of the crow
In December 2012, Ι came across a medium population of kournopodi (ancient Greek coronopus, Oenanthe pimpilloides, Corky-fruited water-dropwort) and few plants of ahatzikes (Shepherd's needle...
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No famine during the harsh winter of 763-4?
Extreme cold and extensive snowfall is rather unusual in the eastern Mediterranean apart of the mountain regions. However the winter of 763-4 AD was so terrible that Byzantine sources referred...
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