Monastic meal. "Tavranchug" and other mysteries of the statutes of ancient Russian monasteries
According to the latest statistics, the number of all monasteries in Rossiand extends to 684, namely: male - 484 and female - 200. Monastics are with them 6.813 males and 5.769 females; novices - 4.143, novices - 14.199.
In total, therefore, 31,000 monastics throughout Rossiyu at ee 110 milisingle population. In one Moscow provinceiand there are 32 monasteries - male and female. Next, go governoriand: Novgorod - 28 monasteries, Vladimirskaya - 17 monasteries, Vologda - 10 monasteries. Then in the rest of the provincesiyah the number of monasteries ranges from 1 to 5 and rarely up to 10 monasteries.
The monks are excellent hosts and monasticiI canteens are wide open for everyone who comes to the monastery. Wandering pilgrims, "pilgrims", while in the monastery, always get food at the expense of the monastery.As you know, the monks, having entered the monastery, refuse, by the way, and consumedii'm meat. In the East, due toiIn the warm climate, the monks subsist exclusively on plant foods. Tact, for example, on Athos, the usual menu of the monastery foodiI represent: boiled pumpkins or cucumbers, goatsiand cheese, watermelon - a table highly hostile to European stomachs.
I had to familiarize myself withieat the monks on Valaam and eatiI eat nuns at the Novodevichy Convent in St. Petersburg.
Even before the trip to Valaam, one summer, in a suburban area, I met a crowd of pilgrims returning from Valaam. The pilgrims, the peasants, walked with long staffs in their hands and small knapsacks. Intrigued by them, I asked where they came from?
— From Valaam!
- Well? Okay there?
- Good good! At dinner, four dishes are served! ..
- Feed, so it's good?
- Enough!..
That same summer, I visited the Valaam Monastery and could check the impressions of a commoner regarding food.iI am a monk.
The staff of the Valaam Monastery consists of 150 monks and 150 novices. In addition, the monastery hires up to 200 workers for the production of various household work, mainly Chukhons and Korells.
The economy of the monastery is in a brilliant condition. During the spring and autumn ice drift, continuediFor several months, cut off from society, from Mipa, the monastery, of necessity, takes care to acquire all the food products, most of which it obtains by its own labor, and, moreover, in its own monastery, on its island.
In addition to the church service, the monks themselves plow the land, remove bread from the field, mow the grass, engage in gardening, etc. In the summer, during field work, there is often a “general obedienceie". For example, the whole monastery goes out to harvest bread, etc. In this case, the abbot addresses the monks in this form: “Obey to the holyie, bless you brotherime, fuck off!
Horticulture and horticulture flourish in the monasteries. Thanks to careful and tireless work, the monastery, in terms of the culture of garden plantsiand achieved amazing results. At the same time, notcIt is necessary to lose sight of the significant northern latitude of Valaam, as well as the harsh climate. For gardening and horticulture, the monastery has several gold and silver medals from various exhibitions. One of the medals was received for the cultivation of apples, of which some weigh from 3/4 to 1 pound. Melons reached 7 pounds, watermelons 20 pounds, and pumpkins 2 pounds.
Въ continuediyears the monastery spends for its foodiI have 10,000 pounds of grain, most of which he sows himself. The monastery has its own flour mill. There is especially a lot of bread in the summer, when there is a large influx of pilgrims. Vъ currentiFrom 10,000 to 15,000 pilgrims visit Valaam every year.
GrandeeiA vivid picture is presented by the temple feast of the monastery on June 29, when thousands of pilgrims flock. The pilgrims who arrived at Valaam live on a dependentiand the monastery and go to a common fraternal meal with the monks, which happens twice a day.
The monks eat vegetable and dairy foods. Tue Monday, Wednesday and Friday, food is cooked in vegetable oil, and on the rest of the days, in vegetable oil. Lunch - at 12 o'clock, dinner - at 8 o'clock. At dinner, 4 dishes are served: 1) botvinya from garden vegetables, and on fasting days - potatoes with cucumbers, 2) cabbage soup with smelt or salted fish, 3) stew, 4) buckwheat. Black rye bread - as much as you want. Monks in the cells are given a portioniI have tea, sugar and milk.
The monastic dining room is a vast hall, in which tables are arranged in three rows. Saints are depicted in the piers between the windows, in black monastic cassocks, with scrolls in their hands, on which various moral teachings are inscribed.iI. Long rows of tables can accommodate up to 500 people. For monastic hired workers there is a special roomie, in which there are two dining rooms: for Russians and Chukhon.
At the monks' meal, in the front corner, a place of honor is reserved for the father hegumen. To the table, on the left side, a bell is tied. By finishediand mass, monks, novices and "pilgrims" of various ranksiI go to the dining room: while the food is being served there, they stand at the door of the dining room. But then, at last, the door of the dining-room opened, and the audience, decorously, without haste, went to the tables. Everyone becomes anywhere; a merchant to stand next to a peasant, etc.
When all the places at the tables are occupied, there is silence, the father hegumen rings the bell, and the monks, turning to the icons, sing the pre-dinner prayers. After prayer - again quietly. The hegumen rings the bell again, the audience sits on the benches and starts the meal.
At dinner, young novices serve, who, however, have time to dine with everyone. Each diner is entitled to moreiare slices of bread. In tin bowls pour the monasteryiy kvass.
During fasting, the monks eat mainly vegetables and mushrooms. The monks prepare a huge amount of mushrooms for the purpose, because 1 tub daily is spent on their fasts. The food of the Valaam monks, however, is rather heavy for an unaccustomed Petersburg inhabitant.
There are up to 500 nuns in the Novodevichy Convent in St. Petersburg. In the summer, the monastery hires up to 100 gardeners and kaporok workers to work in the monastery gardens, and in the monastery priThere are 70 girls in Yuta, a total of about 700 people are fed with monastic bread.
Every industry is fediI am in charge of a nun, an experienced craftswoman in her chosen specialty. One nun is in charge of a bakery, another - kvass, a third - sir, a fourth - a kitchen, and so on. There is even a special bakery calledieat "pretzel", where pretzels are baked.
The monastery bakery is large. Two huge "Russian ovens", trimmed with tiles on the outside, can accommodate up to 50 loaves, which are baked on "pans", so that each loaf has a quadrangular shape.
In the middle of the bakery draws attention to itselfiIt is a huge monastery sourdough, in which two sacks of flour fit at once, i.e. about 20 pounds. Of course, it is very difficult to knead such a mass of dough: you have to resort to the help of a special “gate”, which is a very ingenious deviceie - to the monastery quarry. Imagine a pitcher standing on the floor, about 2 arshins high and aiabout 1 sazhen in diameter. From the middle of the bottom of the kneader a wooden beam rises up, which rests against the ceiling with its upper end.
From this beam in the bowl, in all directions, in different directionsipits, up, down, sideways, etc., there are wooden forks-mixers that reach almost to the very walls of the kneader. In addition, above the bowl itself, to the beam, on four sides, long levers are attached: holding the ends of these levers with your hands, you can walk around the bowl; from this gate, with the whole system of “mixers”, it will come in a circular motion, and the dough in the kneader will “knead” little by little.
Starting to “mix the dough”, usually 8 nuns walk around the kneader and turn the gate for 1 hour, first in one direction, and then in the other. 50 loaves come out of the kneader, each weighing 25 pounds. On parental Saturday, when there is a commemorationiFor the dead, the monastery bakes up to 2,000 prosphora. Bb bigie holidays of bread and kvass are exhibited at the monastery gates - for passers-by and pilgrims.
Monastic foodiIt is based mainly on plant foods with an addition of fish and dairy products. Vegetable food puts some imprint on health and physical fitness in general.ith body of nuns: most of them are pale-faced, many, as they say, have no blood on their faces; it informs their physiologyiand apathetic, passionless expressedie. However, the "cell" way of life of nuns also means a lot here.
Photo - Einar Erici (1885-1965)
30.11.2012 The labors of the brethren of the monastery 15 873
A meal in a monastery is a sacred act, lunch is a continuation of the service. Before the start of the meal and at the end of it, all the brethren pray, thank the Lord for His blessings, prayerfully commemorating the living and deceased fathers and brothers. All food is blessed by the priest. There is a very noticeable difference between having lunch together with the whole brethren and eating the same dishes separately (due to illness or peculiarities of obedience). And if the heart of the temple is the altar with the Holy See, then the heart of the Kelar service, which is responsible for the food of the brethren, is, of course, the kitchen.
The Kelar service occupies a separate (northern) wing of the inner monastery square. A large bright refectory that can accommodate about 200 people, a kitchen, two dishwashers, warehouses, a dairy, a confectionery and a vegetable shop, a dining room, office space and workshops, a small laundry room - everything is under one roof. In the Kelar service, only brothers, mostly laborers, will obey.
The kitchen is a bright room with high ceilings with an area of about 40 sq.m. Food is cooked on an electric stove (there is always a full-fledged wood-burning stove in reserve) and in a miracle machine that can bake, fry, boil, and steam. The kitchen also has an industrial meat grinder, comfortable steel cutting tables, its own small sink and a wide variety of kitchen utensils. The kitchen, as in most rooms of the Kelar service, was broadcast from the temple. Therefore, the brethren, who are busy preparing food during the divine service, do not feel cut off from the general prayer meeting.
Until recently, two meals were established for the monastic brethren: lunch (on weekdays at 13:00, on vigil holidays - immediately after the end of the service) and dinner (immediately after the end of the evening service, at about 19:30). About a month ago, at 8:00, breakfasts were also served, mainly for those who, by virtue of obedience, carry a significant physical activity.
Two "teams" of cooks are engaged in cooking in shifts. Each consists of a cook and two assistants. Chefs are engaged only in the preparation of ready-made dishes. The necessary vegetables for them are cleaned in the vegetable shop, the cooks take the dirty kitchen utensils to the sink. Tables are set, bread is cut and fruits are laid out - trapezniks.
The chef's personality, his inner state, his attitude towards other brothers play a key role in the whole process. One of the cooks, novice Igor, tells about his attitude to this difficult and responsible obedience.
Igor, how long have you been in the monastery and how did you get into the fraternal kitchen?
Fourth year. For a long time I combined the obedience of a stoker in the Igumenskaya hotel and an assistant librarian, then I was a milker on a farm, and after health problems arose, I was returned to the Central Estate and was appointed assistant cook. Several times I had to replace the cook, and two months later I had to lead one of the shifts myself.
Did you have any cooking experience before the monastery?
Professional - no. I could cook something in "home" volumes, but not for a hundred or two hundred people. Therefore, at first the most difficult thing was to calculate the amount of food needed to prepare the required number of servings. But over time, "filled his hand."
What is the mode of obedience?
We start obedience in the evening: we cook dinner, some dishes for breakfast, we make preparations for dinner. The start time of the evening shift depends on the volume and complexity of the dishes. Therefore, in the evening, obedience begins in the interval from three to four hours. Recently, we have been steaming almost all main dishes or baking them in an oven. Kelar strives to make the diet of the brethren as healthy as possible; we fry almost nothing, we use mostly olive oil. And this miracle cabinet holds a limited amount of food, so it takes more time to cook. The morning shift starts at nine. The difficulty lies in the fact that few of the assistants linger in the kitchen for a long time. As a rule, laborers from conscripts are placed on this obedience. Only such a young brother, who did not cook anything at home, will master our specifics a little, as his term of obedience in the monastery ends, and it is necessary to teach the next one. So you have to keep an eye on everything. Of course, among the conscripts there are intelligent guys who really like this obedience. They quickly learn everything, and then I can purposefully deal with one dish while preparing dinner and observe the overall process. The evening shift ends at dinner, unless you need to cut the fish for tomorrow (it's another hour or two), the day shift lasts until about two.
What are the busiest times of the year for the kitchen?
The most intense work is when a full set of ingredients is used - fish, eggs, dairy products. And this happens during continuous weeks (Bright Week, Maslenitsa, from Christmas to Epiphany). On the contrary, it is easiest during Lent, especially in the first week, when only dinner is prepared, and even then starting from Wednesday.
How strictly is your activity regulated by the cellar?
There is no great freedom. There is a menu and a recipe. The chef cannot invent and prepare new dishes without the blessing of the cellarer. The recipe is transmitted both by word of mouth, and there are records. There is some degree of freedom in the choice of spices and sauces. But in general, I have to cook exactly what is written on the menu and the recipe, what was cooked before me, what the cellarer says. I cannot go against obedience. Each cook, of course, has his own handwriting: chop vegetables coarsely or finely, how much salt to add (I try to put less), but these are details.
Have you ever cooked a dish that you personally do not like at all?
- I didn't think about that. The process is more important to me. There are dishes that are more difficult for me - these are those that I have not cooked before. And I always get excited when I take a dish for the first time.
How important is the reaction of your brothers to you?
- Of course it's important. Everything is done with prayer and love. As a brother eats, so he will obey. With what mood he will leave the refectory, with such he will spend the rest of the day. Therefore, you try to cook both tastier and more, because the brothers are different in size and appetite.
Have you ever taken the initiative to prepare a new dish?
- It happened to offer something new to the cellarer. He listens and accepts or does not accept my proposals.
You have two alternate assistants. How do you manage to get them to comply with your requirements? After all, there are adults and independent people who believe that during their lives they have already learned "how to cut potatoes" and do not need additional instructions.
- Just patience. People came here not to work, but to pray and learn to love their neighbor. In obedience, I am an example for them. Up to fifteen times sometimes you have to say the same thing, to the point that you take your hand and say: “Let me show you how to cut.” You cut out samples of vegetable preparations for him. If the brother is completely unbearable, then you simply entrust him with another task. But I don’t want to speak sharply, raise my voice. Maybe this is my personal opinion, but with what inner state a person leaves obedience (usually they are here for a short time), such will be his experience of communicating with people in the monastery. The calmer and more patient you are with a person, the more patient he becomes, he learns not to notice any human shortcomings and looks more into himself and behind himself. It is also very important to establish relationships within the team, and if a person does not like something categorically, there is no need to force him. It is better to send him to pray once again than to achieve the task at any cost. We are not in production, not at work, we are in a monastery, here the main tasks are completely different.
Did it happen that the assistants let you down?
Everything happens to everyone. Especially at first, every beginner makes a lot of mistakes, you have to constantly watch, show and tell. If the assistant did something wrong, then you have to redo it for him, bring the dish to an “edible” state so as not to throw away food. We're not professionals, and we didn't come here to learn how to cut vegetables. If the assistant makes a mistake, you start showing him several times, asking if he understood. A brother sometimes gets nervous - yes, I understand, I understand - and then again makes the same mistake. Obedience cooking is very responsible. Although it is not visible to everyone. You do this not for one specific person, but for everyone. To please everyone. You do not expect, of course, praise, this is not monastic. But I really want everything to be always on the level.
Have you had any personal problems with food? After all, you can eat as much as you like, choose the best piece for yourself. Do you eat with the brethren in the refectory or in the kitchen?
Personally, you can’t cook anything for yourself without the blessing of the cellar, neither for me nor for the assistants. If there is no time, then you can eat in the kitchen, but only what is prepared for everyone. At the same time, the best is put on the table so that it looks beautiful and is pleasant, so that it is both appetizing and tasty. You take the leftovers, substandard. I didn’t think about a tidbit for myself. Food is food.
But what if you are asked to eat by other “employees” of the Kelar service: dishwashers, milkmen…
- You give without refusal, but you remind: take it, but there is a common meal. Lunch at the monastery is the continuation of the divine service. We should all go to lunch. Washers and trapezniks do not have time to eat normally, so you leave them. I can't refuse. For those who are attracted by delicious smells - I give a try, but I definitely ask you to go to a fraternal dinner.
What gives you the greatest joy in this obedience?
- When the brothers come out of the refectory and smile. We, unfortunately, do not lie crosswise when leaving the refectory, as they write about it in the patericons. I would like to look the brothers in the eye: did you like it? When the brothers are satisfied after the meal, this is a sign to me that the obedience is done well.
What bothers you the most?
- At first, when I myself became a cook, there was constant dissatisfaction with myself: I don’t know how, it would be better for me to do what is well given and bring to those great benefit monastery. When you come to the kitchen and do not know basic things, an inner murmur rises, a desire to go to the confessor with the thought of changing obedience. Then, after praying, you say to yourself: “Who should do this? If I don’t cook dinner today, a hundred or two hundred people will go hungry.” Thinking like this makes me feel very uncomfortable. After all, many of the brothers are tired, they are carrying out physical exertion ... Therefore, the situation of uncertainty is most oppressive, the fear due to inexperience to cause trouble to the brethren. Now the cellar introduces new recipes. So I look at the menu for the week and see a new dish. And how to cook it? Sometimes even familiar dishes may fail due to the quality of the products. Again an inner murmur rises against oneself and excitement. Having prayed to the Mother of God, you pull yourself together and do not relax. Listening is very important. At first I even thought that it was one of the most difficult. Now, of course, it's easier. And at first it was very hard both physically and mentally, I had to constantly be in suspense. After all, assistants watch how you behave in stressful situations. You can not answer rudely, look unfriendly. You try to do everything with a joke, with a smile: “It didn’t work out - don’t worry, it will work out in next time, but remember that you need to do it this way, in this proportion. When you do everything with prayer and do not give vent to negative emotions, everything eventually falls into place.
Considering all the difficulties you mentioned, did you ever have a desire to ask for another obedience?
We must treat this as an obedience, and not as a job chosen at will.
Imagine that you will meet your monastic old age in this kitchen. Not sad from such thoughts?
Somehow I didn't think about it. If you responsibly treat even an unloved business, then over time it becomes a favorite. After all, there is also needlework, so it’s not boring and not sad.
Valaam Monastery
Potatoes “in uniform” in the monastery are jokingly called “in cassock” - after all, monks do not wear uniforms
Recently, I began to notice that when talking about products, dishes “monastic ...”, or “like a monastery ...”, people mean: “high-quality”, “real”, “delicious”. Honey, bread, lunch...
Observing it on purpose, it struck me that this trend is not only expanding, but is already being used by various product manufacturers, conscientious and not so good. Then the question arose: what is modern monastic food, monastic products? What stands behind the recognition of the consumer - the traditional respect for the religious way of life, which excludes deceit and laziness, or the absence of intelligible state quality guidelines, the same GOSTs, for example?
For answers to these questions, we turned to Father Micah, Hieromonk of the Holy Danilov Monastery. The path that led this remarkable man to the church was not easy.
Let's start with the fact that Father Mikhey was a paratrooper and knows the concept of "hot spot" firsthand. Already, while in the monastery, Father Mikhei performed difficult obediences: setting up a skete in the Ryazan region, organizing a monastery apiary, acting as a cellarer in the St. Danilov Monastery itself, and many others that I don’t know about.
As a result, we managed to build a picture of how a Russian Orthodox monastery lives today from questions and answers: what it produces, what it eats, whom and how it feeds.
AIF.RU: It is known that the vast majority of monasteries in Rus' were self-sufficient in the production, storage and distribution of products. The monasteries owned gardens, fields, orchards, ponds and apiaries. Also, since ancient times, the tradition of feeding monastic products not only to the brethren, but also to workers, pilgrims, students, and guests has been preserved. Is this tradition alive in St. Daniel's Monastery today?
O. Mikhey: From a century in Rus', monasteries were not only centers of spiritual life, but also economic ones. Not only did they feed themselves, but they also carried out selection work, grew new varieties of plants, searched for and found new ways to store and preserve food. For many hundreds of years, monasteries not only fed themselves, but also widely helped those in need. As in normal times, and especially in war years, during lean periods, during epidemics.
There is no other way in the monastery: today the economy of the St. Danilov Monastery feeds up to 900 people daily. We have a little over 80 brethren, almost 400 laity workers. And also pilgrims, guests of the monastery, those in need - every day the monastery kitchen, with God's help, provides food for all these people.
Most of the products we have are our own production. This is flour, from the monastic fields in the Ryazan region, and vegetables, and fruits, and honey. For the time being, we mainly buy fish, but we want to dig ponds in the same place, on the lands of the skete, and start raising fish. We keep cows - for butter, cottage cheese, milk. They don't eat meat in the monastery.
- How did the revival of the monastic economy begin?
— The revival of the monastic economy began from the moment it was handed over to the Church in 1983. Over the next five years, the monastery as a whole was restored, and the economy providing it began to function along with it. However, up to a truly independent structure that produces, preserves and nourishes – we are still just going to this all.
Until 1917, the monastery had vast lands, arable land, apiaries, and ponds. There were many good products. The monastery sold a lot, incl. in their own shops and stores. People have always loved them - both Muscovites and pilgrims. Then everything was destroyed, literally - to the ground.
But over the past 17 years, of course, a lot has been done. If you look back today, you see how much we, with God's help, have achieved! And we ourselves grow wheat on the monastery lands, grind flour, bake our famous muffin. And we grow and preserve all the vegetables we need: we preserve, sour, salt.
And now the monastery has more than one apiary - in the suburbs at the monastery farm, near Ryazan, near Anapa and from Altai, honey is also supplied from the apiaries of the Church of the Archangel Michael. Near Ryazan is the largest apiary. Now we have about 300 hives here, and during the season we manage to get more than 10 varieties of honey in apiaries. This is sweet clover, and linden, and buckwheat, and forest and field forbs honeys. Every new season before the departure of the bees, special prayers are performed for the consecration of the apiary, and the beekeepers receive a blessing for the upcoming work.
Honey is such a product - God's blessing. He should be treated that way. After all, if you put an apiary, for example, near the road, then there is nothing coming out of the exhaust pipes: both lead and all kinds of heavy metals. And the bees also collect all this and transfer it to honey. We are responsible before God for the fact that we have apiaries in good, ecologically clean places, and now we offer pure honey to people.
We love our people and want people to be healthy and beautiful and that children are born healthy. Beekeeping is a traditional Russian craft. Back in the 16th century, they said: "Russia is a country where honey flows." Almost every house was engaged in honey. It was also supplied abroad with wax. All Russian people ate honey. It is a necessary product for every person.
It is now customary for us to eat honey only when we are sick. Only this is wrong. Honey should be eaten three times a day: a spoonful in the morning, afternoon and evening. Honey contains everything the body needs, including vitamins. After all, honey is a natural product that people have been eating for centuries to improve their health. Warriors of the past on campaigns always had honey with them. Tasting it, they increased their strength before the upcoming battle.
They began to revive the tradition of monastic bread. People come for our pastries from all over Moscow and even from the Moscow region. A variety of pies, which are prepared according to old monastic recipes, are very popular. Made with soul - and people love it!
Our parishioners and guests of the monastery really appreciate the fact that we use recipes not only from our monastery, but also from other holy places: for example, we have yeast-free bread baked according to Athos recipes, we eat bread from sisters from the Serpukhov Convent.
- And all this is managed by a small brethren of St. Danilov Monastery?
— Of course not! Lay workers and volunteers help us. There are really few monks, especially those who know how to work on earth. Many came to the monastery from the cities, some are not able to do physical labor. But work in honey apiaries is called "sweet hard labor" ...
Not everyone knows how much work has to be done to get good products on the table and the monastery.
— Tell us, please, about the monastic food system. What products and dishes make up the monastic table for the brethren?
— We do not come to the monastery to have a tasty meal - we come to reach the Kingdom of Heaven through labor, prayers and obedience. The highest virtue is fasting, prayer, rejection of worldly temptations and obedience.
By the way, according to the monastic charter, there are about 200 fasting days a year. Fasts are divided into multi-day (Great, Petrovsky, Assumption and Christmas) and one-day (Wednesday, Friday of each week). It was during the days of abstinence from fast food that thousands of original, simple, accessible to the population dishes were developed in the monastery refectories.
The main difference between the monastic table and the worldly table is that we do not eat meat. In the monastery they eat vegetables, cereals, dairy products, pastries and fish, mushrooms. A lot of sauerkraut, cucumbers, tomatoes, mushrooms are always prepared in the storerooms of the monastery.
The cellar supervises this, and the monk brothers and the laity workers do it. And it goes to the table for everyone without exception. According to the charter, the monks eat only twice a day: at lunch and at dinner. The cellar of the monastery especially makes sure that the meals are both tasty, varied and supportive - after all, the interval before meals is long, and no one sits idly by, everyone has their own housework - obedience.
The everyday menu usually consists of fish soup, if allowed on that day, pickle, vegetable, mushroom or milk soup, and fish with a side dish. For dessert - tea, compote or jelly, pies, cookies. The Sunday menu consists of fish borscht, fried fish with a side dish of mashed potatoes or rice with vegetables, fresh vegetables, cold cuts of fish and products from the monastery courtyard - cheese, sour cream and milk. On the holidays of Christmas and Easter, a festive menu is served at the meal.
We have Father Hermogenes - he was the cellar of the monastery for more than 10 years, so he even wrote a book about the monastery meal, "The Kitchen of Father Hermogenes." On this moment cellar in the monastery of Fr. Theognost. I was a cellarer for several years, and before that I carried out obedience in the construction of the skete, the restoration of the Church of the Archangel Michael, the care of apiaries, the bakery ...
Now I have an obedience - I offer monastic products for Muscovites, in a honey shop and 2 monastic stores "Monastyrsky honey" and "Monastic grocery store", where you can buy our products: honey, beekeeping products, honey jam, an assortment of fish, cereals, monastery pastries, yeast-free bread, pies, health products: alcohol-free balms, sbitni, teas, herbs.
And also I have an obedience in the department of making posters of spiritual and patriotic content by modern and classical artists.
— We thank you, father Mikhey for your attention and story. We wish you joy in your work!
I always thought monastic food was bread and water. But one day I found myself in the monastery refectory - and my opinion completely changed. I have never tasted more delicious meals in my life. What's the secret? The monks of the Holy Panteleimon Monastery, on Mount Athos, always welcome pilgrims cordially. The law of hospitality is strictly observed here - first feed, then ask questions. However, no one will bother you with questions even after dinner: everyone, they believe, has his own way to the temple.
We were not at all surprised by the modesty of the meal: bread, buckwheat porridge seasoned with stewed vegetables, pea soup with greens (which in worldly life you won’t even look at and certainly won’t look at), baked potatoes with sauerkraut, fresh cucumbers and kvass. There were also olives (by the way, as they explained to us, you can eat them with pits) and dry red wine (at the bottom of the mug). But the taste of these dishes… He amazed us!
The most appropriate word in this case is ‘unearthly’. I asked one of the monks about this. He silently raised his eyes to the sky and quietly, without the slightest hint of instructiveness and edification, answered: ‘It is important with what thoughts, not to mention words, a person starts preparing food and the meal itself. Here is what is written about this in the ‘Kiev-Pechersky Paterikon’: ‘It was given to one elder to see how the same food differed: those who blasphemed food ate sewage, those who praised honey. But you, when you eat or drink, praise God, because the one who blasphemes harms himself.
Sauerkraut was with carrots, beets and fragrant dill seeds. It was they who gave the usual for us, Russians, winter harvesting an amazing taste. And, as the monks said, such cabbage is very useful for the good functioning of the stomach. Above a mound of cabbage, laid out in simple aluminum bowls, rose a gleaming soaked apple. Several of these apples must be placed in each tub when sauerkraut is sauerkraut. They also give it a special flavor.
Meat delicacies and pastries are not for Athos monks. In their opinion, gluttony is a dangerous trait that entails diseases of the body and various mental ailments. Fatty foods ‘salt the soul’, and sauces and canned food ‘thinn the body’. For the monks of Athos, eating is a spiritual process, somewhat of a ritual act.
Prayer - during the preparation of this or that dish (in this case it will definitely succeed), a short prayer before sitting at the table, a prayer after eating food. And the very atmosphere of the spacious and bright refectory, the walls and ceiling of which are painted with paintings on biblical scenes, turns a modest monastic dinner into a festive feast and a feast of the soul. ‘Likewise, a layman’s kitchen,’ the monk told me, ‘should not be a place for family squabbles and political discussions, but only a refectory.’
Most recently, I happened to visit the Goritsky Resurrection convent which opened in 1999. In the monastery refectory, sisters Yulia and Nadezhda carried out their obedience. They were young, hardly more than twenty in appearance, but they handled the kitchen utensils confidently and without fuss. Novelties of technological progress, such as mixers and vegetable cutters, bypassed these holy places.
The nuns do everything themselves: and the dough is kneaded in large vats by hand, and the butter is churned with hand buttermilk. Yes, and the monastic meal is prepared not on gas in dishes with a non-stick coating, but on a wood-burning stove, in cast iron. Because, say the nuns, and it turns out more tasty, rich and fragrant.
I watched the younger Nadezhda shred the cabbage, and admired: the strips were thin, thin, one by one, as if each one was measured out. I salted it lightly, sprinkled it with vegetable oil, laid out a flower from thawed cranberry beads and dill sprigs on top - not a dish, but a picture, it’s even a pity to eat, and put it aside with the words; ‘Let the cabbage give juice, then you can put it on the table’.
I heard somewhere that monks shouldn't decorate their meals nicely, so I asked Sister Nadezhda about it. ‘Well, what are you,’ she replied, ‘God cannot be against the beautiful, as long as it comes from a pure heart, does not become an end in itself and does not lead to bitterness if something does not work out. I generally noticed,” she added, “that I have become very good at cooking here, although I have never studied it, and I have not yet accumulated much worldly culinary wisdom. It’s just that when there is peace in the soul and love for the world and those who live in it, everything you do turns out well.
As she said this, she was carving up a herring to prepare an aspic of salted herring minced with mushrooms. The nun soaked dried porcini mushrooms in advance in cold water and now put them on fire. After they were cooked, they passed through a meat grinder and mixed with finely chopped herring fillet. I added black pepper, chopped onion to the minced meat and ... began to paint a new culinary still life.
She formed a herring from the minced meat, carefully attached the head and tail, put small, parsley, small water lilies of boiled carrots around and poured everything with mushroom broth mixed with swollen gelatin. It turned out a lake with an appetizing fish inside.
“You can,” she said, seeing my enthusiastic look, “decorate your dish as you like. Yes, and it is not necessary to cook it using dried mushrooms. It’s just that my sisters and I collected so many of them over the summer and autumn ... And you, if you don’t have dried ones, take ordinary champignons. Although, for me, not a single mushroom grown in ‘captivity’ can compare with forest ones.
Such a spirit comes from them! .. I must say that the dinner for which Sister Nadezhda prepared her 'culinary masterpieces' was not a festive one, and of the guests it was attended by only a few travelers like me, who were real then pilgrims can be called a stretch. But here they accept everyone and do not ask how strong your faith is: once you have come, it means that your soul asks.
In addition to aspic, Nadezhda prepared several more unusual mushroom dishes. For example, mushroom cheese, caviar and some unusually delicious cold appetizer. Dried mushrooms for her are soaked in water for an hour, and then boiled in salted water until tender. They, as the nuns said, can be replaced with fresh ones: champignons or oyster mushrooms.
In this case, it is enough to boil the mushrooms, finely chop, mix with chopped onions, add salt if necessary and pour over the sauce. It is prepared from grated horseradish diluted with a small amount of strong bread kvass and mushroom broth. The dish is not spicy, but only with a slight aftertaste of horseradish, which should not interrupt the taste of mushrooms.
Of the cold appetizers on the table, there was also boiled beetroot with a spicy sauce made from boiled egg yolks, grated horseradish and vegetable oil. This dish was very familiar to me, but I tried boiled beans fried in oil for the first time - very tasty. The dish, as the sisters told me, is prepared, albeit simply, but for quite a long time.
Beans must first be soaked in water for 6-10 hours, then boiled in salted water until tender, but so that it does not boil, put in a colander, dry slightly on fresh air and only then fry in vegetable oil until golden brown. A couple of minutes before readiness, add browned onions to the cauldron, salt, season with spices to taste and remove from heat. The beans are served cold.
While Nadezhda was conjuring (although such a word is not very suitable for a nun) over cold dishes, Julia was preparing the first and second. The first was the monastery borscht with beans and kalya (soup cooked in cucumber pickle) with fish. For the second - pilaf with vegetables and raisins, lean cabbage rolls, pumpkin repecha - something like a pumpkin casserole with rice: pumpkin and rice for this dish are pre-boiled separately from each other, then mixed, beaten whites and yolks are also added to the minced meat and spread everything in a greased form.
It turns out something between a pastry and a second course. For dessert, the sisters made an apple pie and poppy seed cakes with honey - poppy seeds. And although the dough was kneaded without the use of butter, it turned out lush, tender, and the filling ... Baking with poppy seeds is generally my weakness.
As you can see, the nuns ate and treated the pilgrims without meat at all. But believe me, we didn't even notice it. On the days of fasting, the number of dishes on the table, as the nuns said, decreases, fish, eggs, and dairy products disappear. But the meal at the same time does not become less tasty and, of course, remains just as satisfying.
Saying goodbye to the hospitable sisters, I asked if they had heard of ‘Angel Curls’ jam? They say that this recipe was given to the abbess of one of the Spanish monasteries by the Virgin Mary on the night before Christmas. Pumpkin fibers (in which the seeds are hidden) are boiled in sugar syrup along with pureed hazelnuts. ‘No,’ said the nuns, ‘we haven’t heard, but we also make jam from pumpkin fibers, which most housewives simply throw away. You just need to separate the fibers from the pulp and seeds, dry slightly (air-dry).
Prepare sugar syrup, pour it with fibers, leave for a day, and then cook like our jams - five minutes: 3-4 times for five to seven minutes, (It is important to completely cool the jam after each cooking and only then put it on fire again.) and cook monastic cuisine at home. Perhaps then the upcoming post will not seem so insipid and difficult.
20099
21
I I always thought that monastic food is bread and water. But one day I found myself in the monastery refectory - and my opinion completely changed. I have never tasted more delicious meals in my life. What's the secret?
The monks of the Holy Panteleimon Monastery, on Mount Athos, always welcome pilgrims cordially. The law of hospitality is strictly observed here - first feed, then ask questions. However, no one will bother you with questions even after dinner: everyone, they believe, has his own way to the temple.
We were not at all surprised by the modesty of the meal: bread, buckwheat porridge seasoned with stewed vegetables, pea soup with greens (which in worldly life you won’t even look at and certainly won’t look at), baked potatoes with sauerkraut, fresh cucumbers and kvass. There were also olives (by the way, as they explained to us, you can eat them with pits) and dry red wine (at the bottom of the mug). But the taste of these dishes... He amazed us! The most appropriate word in this case is "unearthly". I asked one of the monks about this. He silently raised his eyes to the sky and quietly, without the slightest hint of instructiveness and edification, answered: “It is important with what thoughts, not to mention words, a person starts cooking and the meal itself. Pechersky Paterik": "It was given to one elder to see how the same food differed: those who blasphemed food - ate sewage, praised - honey. But you, when you eat or drink, praise God, because the one who blasphemes harms himself."
Sauerkraut was with carrots, beets and fragrant dill seeds. It was they who gave the usual for us, Russians, winter harvesting an amazing taste. And, as the monks said, such cabbage is very useful for the good functioning of the stomach. Above a mound of cabbage, laid out in simple aluminum bowls, rose a gleaming soaked apple. Several of these apples must be placed in each tub when sauerkraut is sauerkraut. They also give it a special flavor.
Meat delicacies and pastries are not for Athos monks. In their opinion, gluttony is a dangerous trait that entails diseases of the body and various mental ailments. Fatty food "salts the soul", and sauces and canned food "dilute the body". 
For Athos monks, eating is a spiritual process, somewhat of a ritual act. Prayer - during the preparation of this or that dish (in this case it will definitely succeed), a short prayer before sitting at the table, a prayer after eating food. And the very atmosphere of the spacious and bright refectory, the walls and ceiling of which are painted with paintings on biblical scenes, turns a modest monastic dinner into a festive feast and a feast of the soul. “Likewise, a layman’s kitchen,” the monk told me, “should not be a place for family squabbles and political discussions, but only a refectory.”
Most recently, I happened to visit the Goritsky Resurrection Convent, which opened in 1999. In the monastery refectory, sisters Yulia and Nadezhda carried out their obedience. They were young, hardly more than twenty in appearance, but they handled the kitchen utensils confidently and without fuss. Novelties of technological progress, such as mixers and vegetable cutters, bypassed these holy places. The nuns do everything themselves: they knead the dough in large vats with their hands, and churn the butter with hand-made buttermilk. Yes, and the monastic meal is prepared not on gas in dishes with a non-stick coating, but on a wood-burning stove, in cast iron. Because, say the nuns, and it turns out more tasty, rich and fragrant.
I watched the younger Nadezhda shred the cabbage, and admired: the strips were thin, thin, one by one, as if each one was measured out. I salted it lightly, sprinkled it with vegetable oil, laid out a flower from thawed cranberry beads and dill sprigs on top - not a dish, but a picture, it’s even a pity to eat, and put it aside with the words; "Let the cabbage give juice, then you can put it on the table."
I heard somewhere that monks shouldn't decorate their meals nicely, so I asked Sister Nadezhda about it. “Well, what are you,” she replied, “God cannot be against the beautiful, as long as it comes from a pure heart, does not become an end in itself and does not lead to bitterness if something does not work out. I generally noticed,” she added, “ that here she began to cook very well, although she had never studied this, and she had not yet accumulated great worldly culinary wisdom. It’s just that when there is peace in the soul and love for the world and those who live in it, everything you do turns out well. "
As she said this, she was carving up a herring to prepare an aspic of salted herring minced with mushrooms. The nun soaked the dried white mushrooms in cold water beforehand and now put them on the fire. After they were cooked, they passed through a meat grinder and mixed with finely chopped herring fillet. I added black pepper, chopped onion to the minced meat and ... began to paint a new culinary still life. She formed a herring from the minced meat, carefully attached the head and tail, put small sprigs of dill, parsley, small water lilies from boiled carrots around and poured everything with mushroom broth mixed with swollen gelatin. It turned out a lake with an appetizing fish inside. 
“You can,” she said, seeing my enthusiastic look, “decorate your dish as you like. Yes, and it is not necessary to cook it using dried mushrooms. It’s just that my sisters and I collected so many of them over the summer and autumn ... And you, if you don’t have dried ones, take ordinary champignons. Although, for me, not a single mushroom grown in "captivity" can be compared with forest ones. Such a spirit comes from them! .. I must say that the dinner for which Sister Nadezhda prepared her "culinary masterpieces" was not festive, and of the guests it was attended by only a few travelers like me, who were real - then pilgrims can be called a stretch. But here they accept everyone and do not ask how strong your faith is: once you have come, it means that your soul asks.
In addition to aspic, Nadezhda prepared several more unusual mushroom dishes. For example, mushroom cheese, caviar and some unusually delicious cold appetizer. Dried mushrooms for her are soaked in water for an hour, and then boiled in salted water until tender. They, as the nuns said, can be replaced with fresh ones: champignons or oyster mushrooms. In this case, it is enough to boil the mushrooms, finely chop, mix with chopped onions, add salt if necessary and pour over the sauce. It is prepared from grated horseradish diluted with a small amount of strong bread kvass and mushroom broth. The dish is not spicy, but only with a slight aftertaste of horseradish, which should not interrupt the taste of mushrooms.
Of the cold appetizers on the table, there was also boiled beetroot with a spicy sauce made from boiled egg yolks, grated horseradish and vegetable oil. This dish was very familiar to me, but I tried boiled beans fried in oil for the first time - very tasty. The dish, as the sisters told me, is prepared, albeit simply, but for quite a long time. Beans must first be soaked in water for 6-10 hours, then boiled in salted water until tender, but not boiled, put in a colander, dry slightly in the fresh air and only then fry in vegetable oil until golden brown. A couple of minutes before readiness, add browned onions to the cauldron, salt, season with spices to taste and remove from heat. The beans are served cold.
While Nadezhda was conjuring (although such a word is not very suitable for a nun) over cold dishes, Julia was preparing the first and second. The first was the monastery borscht with beans and kalya (soup cooked in cucumber pickle) with fish. For the second - pilaf with vegetables and raisins, lean cabbage rolls, pumpkin repecha - something like pumpkin casserole with rice: pumpkin and rice for this dish are pre-boiled separately from each other, then mixed, beaten whites and yolks are also added to the minced meat and spread everything in a greased form. It turns out something between a pastry and a second course. 
For dessert, the sisters prepared an apple pie and poppy seed cakes with honey - poppy seeds. And although the dough was kneaded without the use of butter, it turned out lush, tender, and the filling ... Baking with poppy seeds is generally my weakness.
As you can see, the nuns ate and treated the pilgrims without meat at all. But believe me, we didn't even notice it. On the days of fasting, the number of dishes on the table, as the nuns said, decreases, fish, eggs, and dairy products disappear. But the meal at the same time does not become less tasty and, of course, remains just as satisfying.
Saying goodbye to the hospitable sisters, I asked if they had heard of the "Angel's Curls" jam? They say that this recipe was given to the abbess of one of the Spanish monasteries by the Virgin Mary on the night before Christmas. Pumpkin fibers (in which the seeds are hidden) are boiled in sugar syrup along with pureed hazelnuts. “No,” the nuns said, “we haven’t heard, but we also make jam from pumpkin fibers, which most housewives simply throw away. You just need to separate the fibers from the pulp and seeds, dry them a little (air-dry). Prepare sugar syrup, pour them with fibers , insist for a day, and then cook like our jams - five minutes: 3-4 times for five to seven minutes, (It is important to completely cool the jam after each cooking and only then put it on fire again.) "Try and cook dishes of the monastery cuisine at home . Perhaps then the upcoming post will not seem so insipid and difficult.
mushroom cheese
Wash the mushrooms, cover completely with water, salt and cook until tender for 20 minutes. Drain the water, put the mushrooms in a colander, pass through a meat grinder, add butter and mix with cheese. Put the resulting mass on clean gauze, roll it into a ball and put it under a press for an hour. Transfer the cheese cake to a dish, cut into slices, sprinkle with herbs and serve.
Calla with fish
Wash the fish, cut into portions, pour water (2 liters), put the roots, bay leaf, pepper, salt and cook for 15 minutes. Put the pieces of salmon in a separate dish, strain the broth, add sauerkraut and cook for 5-7 minutes. Finely chop the onion, put in a pan and sauté in oil for 3 minutes. Add diced cucumbers and cook for another 5 minutes, add flour, mix and fry lightly. Put the prepared dressing into the soup, bring to a boil, add the fish, cucumber pickle and cook for 10 minutes. Serve with a slice of lemon on each plate and sprinkle with herbs.
Cabbage rolls with mushrooms
Rice wash, pour one and a half glasses of water and cook until half cooked (about 10 minutes). Wash mushrooms, chop, fry in oil (1 tablespoon) for 10 minutes. Chop the onion and sauté in oil (1 tablespoon) until golden brown, combine with mushrooms and rice, salt, pepper and mix. Separate the cabbage into leaves, blanch in boiling water for 3-4 minutes and drain in a colander. Put a tablespoon of the filling on each sheet and roll up the stuffed cabbage. Put the cabbage rolls in a refractory form greased with oil (1 tbsp), sprinkle with oil (1 tbsp) on top and simmer over low heat under the lid for 15 minutes. Serve sprinkled with herbs.
poppy
Knead the dough: dissolve sugar in warm water, add yeast, flour (1 tbsp), mix and put in a warm place. When the dough rises (15 minutes), add salt, vegetable oil (2 tablespoons), the rest of the flour and knead the dough. Knead until it sticks to your hands. Put the dough in a saucepan, cover with a lid and let rise (45 minutes). Put the poppy in a gauze bag and rinse. Melt honey in a water bath. Add washed poppy seeds, mix and continue to cook, stirring, for 8-10 minutes. Cool down. Roll out the dough thinly, spread the poppy seed filling over the entire surface, roll it into a roll and put it on a greased baking sheet (1 tablespoon), grease with the remaining oil on top and place in an oven preheated to 200 degrees. Bake 10 minutes.
Vladimir Suprumenko
