Dear Tom,
Actually, a Russian friend told me about the pre-revolutionary cookbook she'd been reading which mentioned the "lenten market" which would feature almond milk and other such substitutions. I have a translated Russian cookbook somewhere (Harvard published it years back) which features an astonishing array of fasting recipes, many being fake burgers where you start by shredding a one kopek bread roll.
When the late Met. Philaret travelled, seminarians who rode with him said he never stopped for food, just drove straight from where he was to his destination. Other Orthodox friends stop not at restaurants but at convenience stores where they grab a soda and some nuts or raisins to keep them awake and energetic until they get where they're going. If you travel from one Orthodox friend's house to another, you don't have to worry so much. I BELIEVE (but, read the ingredients yourself) that the B.K. Veggie burgers are fasting except for the fake mayo, so if you ask for one without any, you should be fine. But the older I get, the more I like the nuts and berries approach.
Another approach -- my brothers were getting a ride to Jordanville with friends in the seventies and at a rest area in New York State they came across a Russian family who had brought their own eleborate but fasting meal, which they shared with their fellow Orthodox travellers with quite a bit to spare. The boys reported that the grandmother kept calling the cucumber slices "pickles," much to the consternation of her grandchildren. Packing a fasting meal to share is a nice idea.
In college, my Emergency Fasting Dinner was wheat thins, V-8, an orange and tea. It was enough to keep me awake to get through my classes and I could make up the nutrition the next day. Our Emergency Fasting Lunch is lenten peanut butter crackers (you have to read a lot of labels to find the right brand, but they're cheap), a juice box or water botte, a piece of fruit, and some Walmart fasting cookies. Fr. G. and I can mass produce four of them while the kids are getting dressed and everyone has something to sustain them till they get home. (Last fast our youngest developed a taste for canned green beans, and claimed that green bean juice on bread tasted "just like chicken." It was a long fast.)
Once you're home, a meal should be a family event, nourishing and well balanced and with a nice mix of colors and textures so you ensure that everyone eats a balanced meal. Mothers have to tempt their families to eat well in a way that monastery cooks do not, since monks are fully grown. Batchelors can look through the frozen entrees at the nearby health food store, but this is too expensive for families. The Tightwad Gazette recommends that single people buy a freezer, make several family sized batches of meals, and freeze individual portions as a cheaper version of the same.
But in a family, the children should be drawn in to meal preparation. Toddlers can wash fruit and bring a mother "three potatoes" or "four ears of corn" as a way of learning their numbers while helping out. Little hands can shred lettuce. My 15 and 17 year olds can cook as well as my husband and I can. The 13 year old says he could cook for the whole fast if I bought a case of fasting instant mashed potatoes. The youngest can put together his own lunch, and I ask, "Where's your protein? Where's your fruit or vegetable?" so he learns what it takes to make a balanced meal.
Families should eat together, especially during the fast. Single people should share meals with friends. A pair of unmarried Orthodox could eat at each other's homes at one house Wednesday and another Friday, inviting elderly from the parish or those who are alone. It's important for the parish family to eat together as well.
We have potluck meals after our Akathist service most Fridays during the fast. I get new ideas from the other cooks. During Lent my husband encourages me to make something simple but good for trapeza and share the recipe. For example, I used to suffer from carpo-tunnel syndrome, so I learned to make a fasting pierog by putting two bags of chopped onions and two bags of raw coleslaw mix (i.e. shredded cabbage, carrots and purple cabbage) from the vegetable section of the grocery store in the crock pot. I'd add some chopped mushrooms and drizzle a little vegetable oil over it and cook it overnight. In the morning you stir in drained saurkraut and that's your filling. You buy a pack of five loaves of frozen bread dough at the store and let it defrost overnight and roll them flat to make dough. You put half a loaf's worth of dough on the bottom of a 9x13 pan, spread it thickly with the cabbage mix, roll out the rest for the top, and bake at 350 degrees F. until done. You can make two or three pierogs out of one batch of filling, and break the rest up into rolls for breakfast or to go with soup.
St. Benedict says that you should have two or three different dishes on the table, so if someone doesn't like something he can still find something to eat, but when you have company to add more dishes, in honor of the guests. That makes sense to me. A fasting soup with homemade bread and a hearty salad (like beet-potato salad, or pasta salad, or some such thing) makes a nice family meal, but if company comes we add something entree-ish with more protein. So we might have pea soup with corn bread and kasha, or vegetable soup with brown bread and nothing more needed, or bean stuff on rice with fresh vegetables on the side.
To have variety, I base non-fasting meals on the protein (chicken, beef, other) and fasting meals on the starch (rice one day, pasta the next, potatoes a third). Then you look around your garden, grocery store or fridge to see what you have that's frugal and goes well with the anchor of the meal.
Everyone has the Fasting meal they don't want to admit to. In Texas, the football stadia sell "Frito Pie," where they slit a bag of Fritos corn chips up one side and top it with hot chile and cheese and hand it to the kids with a spoon. The bag is the bowl, the spoon is plastic, everything gets thrown out. When Fr. G. was in Connecticut and the kids and I were still in Texas, I made fasting Frito Pie by opening a bag of fritos up the side and pouring Hormel Vegetarian Chile over it after services late one Saturday. The kids were happy, but I wouldn't do it every week or even every fast. It's the meal to break out in case of emergency.
Hope this helps.
In Christ,
Matushka Ann Lardas
