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Coptic Foodways

Religious

⚠ THE LONGEST FASTING CALENDAR IN CHRISTIANITY, AND IT IS WHY EGYPT HAS SO MUCH GOOD VEGAN FOOD. The Coptic Orthodox Church keeps something over two hundred fasting days in a year — the Great Fast before Easter, the Nativity Fast, the Fast of the Apostles, the Fast of the Virgin, Jonah’s Fast, and most Wednesdays and Fridays — on which observant Copts abstain from all animal products. The result is a documented, fully developed plant kitchen rather than a set of substitutions: FUL and ta’ameya; KOSHARY; lentil soups; BISARA, pureed fava with greens and herbs; molokhia made on vegetable broth; stuffed vegetables and vine leaves without meat; pickles; tahini and halawa; and the fasting breads. At the FEASTS the contrast is the point: FATTA with beef at Easter, a documented rupture of the fast. ⚠ AND THE CAREFUL PART: practice varies by household, region and degree of observance, and this row describes a calendar the Church keeps rather than asserting what every Egyptian Christian eats. Coptic is a liturgical language, descended from ancient Egyptian and written in a Greek-derived alphabet; it is not a spoken vernacular and is not recorded as one.

Atlas — where and when

Where in the world

Communities and languages

  • Copts community documented

Languages: Coptic, Egyptian Arabic, Saidi Arabic

What is recorded

  • The Coptic Orthodox Church keeps in excess of two hundred fasting days a year, including the Great Fast, the Nativity Fast, the Fast of the Apostles, the Fast of the Virgin, Jonah’s Fast and most Wednesdays and Fridays, on which observant Copts abstain from all animal products. This is documented as having produced a developed plant-based kitchen rather than a set of substitutions. Practice varies by household, region and observance. Coptic is a liturgical language descended from ancient Egyptian and is not a spoken vernacular. documented
  • The Coptic Church’s fasting calendar develops, eventually keeping in excess of two hundred abstinent days a year. documented

Related foodways

This foodway relates to

  • related to Egyptian Cuisine documented

    ⚠ Over two hundred fasting days a year is why Egypt has so developed a plant kitchen — a documented cuisine, not a set of substitutions.

Recorded as relating to this foodway

  • related to Egyptian Festival Foodways documented

    ⚠ Sham el-Nessim is kept by Egyptians of all religions on the Monday after Coptic Easter. Its pharaonic descent is an interpretation, not a documented continuity.

Recipes

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