Belongs To Tradition

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

Fasting Food gathers three dishes from three different traditions, each defined not by what it is but by the fasting rule that shapes what can go into it.

Injera, the spongy fermented flatbread at the base of Ethiopian and Eritrean Orthodox Christian meals, is the constant thread running under the roughly two hundred fasting days the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church calendar sets aside each year. The fasting rule, tsom, forbids animal products on fasting days but not injera itself, so the bread looks the same on a fasting day as an ordinary one; it is the vegan wat stews of lentils, split peas and vegetables served with it, cooked without meat, butter or dairy, that mark the fast, and the atlas records injera here specifically in that fasting role rather than as the general national staple it also is.

Kolyva, a boiled wheat dish mixed with sugar, nuts, pomegranate seeds and spices, serves two related purposes in Eastern Orthodox practice, both governed by the Lenten calendar. It is prepared on the first Saturday of Great Lent to commemorate a legendary rescue of Christians from a pagan trap forcing them to eat sacrificed food during a fast, and it is offered at memorial services for the dead, its boiled wheat read as a symbol of resurrection, its ingredients chosen to conform to Lenten fasting restrictions.

Sabudana Khichdi, tapioca pearls cooked with peanuts, potato and mild spices, is eaten across India by Hindus observing a vrata, a religious vow fast, most prominently during the nine nights of Navratri; it belongs to a broader category of foods, including buckwheat and amaranth, permitted during a fast that excludes ordinary cereals and pulses.