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you'll be pleased to know
This is one of the most pleasurable days before the strict fasting of Lent. Lent means no meat, cheese, eggs, fish, dairy for 7 weeks - for those that follow strictly the commandments of the Orthodox church.
Called Tsiknopempti, Smoky or Smelly Thursday. Smoky and smelly because of the delectable aroma of meat on the barbecue which wafts from every home on the island along the harbour, through the back streets, tempting the twitching nostrils. 11 days before Clean Monday, Ash Monday to the rest of you. This is meat week, next week is cheese week then follows the 7 weeks of fasting.
Traditonally we all eat meat on this day. Grilled meat. It's another of those get-together days. Families gather together, eat meat with lashings of tzatziki. The kids dress up in their carnival costumes and usually it all winds up with dancing and much merriment.
Mind you, it's nothing like the years pre-crisis when the petrol station spit roasted a whole lamb, the taxi boat owners set up a grill on the wharf and every butcher's shop had a BBQ outside their shop.
Local schools set up grills in the playgrounds and provide souvlaki (meat on a skewer), a piece of bread and a drink for the children. Souvlaki on a stick always comes with a small slice of bread and a squeeze of lemon juice. Greek children are just as happy to drink water though juice is offered as well.
Our big barbeque is fired up for this occasion
The men grill, test and quench their thirst around the fire
Our family has gathered
No meat for 7 weeks? Now I know why I could never become an Orthodox member.
ReplyDeleteI more or less do it every year. A slice of bacon now and again, a little meat ball don't count, for me. There's so much more to eat. Even the souvlaki shops serve vegetable burgers and squid wraps.
DeleteWe have Shrove Tuesday where you use up all your old eggs and milk and Ash Wednesday which has nothing to do with meat and ashes but repentance before Lent starts. Then it is fasting and giving things up.
ReplyDeleteI think lent should mean giving up something you'd really miss so it would give you brownie points. I've often suggested to 'others' that giving up wine for 47 days might be a good idea. No way
DeleteI love your barbecue.
ReplyDeleteIt's a great big brick BBQ, Made for a whole sheep or pig of course
DeleteWhat could they eat?????????
ReplyDeleteNo nothing, it seems like. No meat or fish. So how can they have squid something-or-other? ,-)))))
The old-time people must have been dragging on the ground, by Easter! Perfect time, for an enemy, to invade!
All the feasting and dancing, before hand, is great!!!
Love hearing about the customs!!!!
Squid, octopus, cuttlefish and shellfish have no blood I'm told which is why they're ok.
DeleteI always said the same about invasion. On Easter weekend a foreign could just walk thru the whole country and take over! Wonder the Turks haven't tried it
Foreign army
DeleteHow did/do farmers tell their animals/chickens... about this? Cows/goats have to be milked. What is done, with it?
ReplyDeleteChickens keep laying eggs. What is done, with them?
Some of this Old Time Religion, I don't know how they got away with such Rules. They simply do not take into consideration, how Nature works!
But! Nature was baddddddd, wasn't it??? All those base animal instincts! Gotta' stamp 'em down!!!! LOL
Old Time Church loved to make Rules, to keep people in line. But really, these, kind of "take the cake," to me.
Keep them in line....there you have it in a nutshell. Butcher's shops use this time to clean up but nowadays there aren't that many that really fast. The eggs and milk can be made into noodles and macaroni,dried and stored.
DeleteWhat they did 50 years ago when there wasn't that much choice and the church ruled with a fist of iron I just don't know. Butcher's we nt out of business and made up for it during Easter week when they charged double for the Pascal lamb
I’m not as strict as I once was
ReplyDeleteBeing sick means I need to eat properly and not meat or dairy for so long would be bad for me
But then again I haven’t been to church to have communion either. So not too worried
Yeah. I’ll probably burn for it lol
If you have health problems you're allowed out of fasting. You're absolved! Lol
DeleteI have rules set by others and my self. Sound like a vegan diet.
ReplyDeleteCoffee is on
Yes I guess it is vegan..except for the shellfish.
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