Rusyn Fasting Foodways

Religious

Fasting shaped the everyday kitchen more than feasting did. Strict fast excludes meat, dairy and eggs — which is why mushrooms, beans, soured cabbage, potatoes, oil-dressed dishes, poppy seed and honey are so heavily developed, and why the meatless versions of holubky, pyrohy and kysele are not substitutes but the original forms of those dishes for much of the year.