Traditionally, Christmas Eve dinner is a fasting meal, so you really don’t have to try very hard to make 12 fully vegan Christmas dishes.But we also have no reason to limit our creativity — especially since today’s Christmas Eve customs are guests from abroad anyway: from Germany (the Christmas tree), from Ukraine (kutia), or even … Read more
In the fasting season, people didn’t necessarily eat “fasting food” in today’s sense of the word — bland, meagre, diet-friendly.Fasting could be lavish. Of course, only on the tables of the small part of society that could afford it. The fish that replaced ham during fasts had, for centuries, been unavailable to the majority of … Read more
One of the most important Christmas Eve dishes of my childhood, a dish never made at any other time, was “kutia”. For some, it’s noodles with poppy seeds. In Silesia, there’s moczka, there’s siemieniotka. A sweet dish with nuts, raisins, honey, and sometimes alcohol (a good kutia needs a touch of brandy) is a legacy … Read more
“I won’t eat without meat,” “Vegetarian cuisine is tasteless.” I’ve heard it hundreds of times, and nothing is surprising about it because it often is. I’ve written about it many times. A common mistake is somewhat removing meat from a dish and assuming that’s enough. No. Meat must be replaced with an ingredient that provides … Read more
