Tag Archives: pudding

Halvás

There are some basic differences between Roman Catholic Easter and Orthodox Easter, one of which is that we don’t always celebrate the same date. There are years when the dates coincide, and there are years when they are celebrated a week apart. Or even five weeks apart, like this year! Hence the fact  that Catholics (and Protestants of course ) celebrated Easter on the 31st of March , whereas we Orthodox Christians  are obliged to wait till the 5th of May – fair enough considering that hopefully the weather will be perfect!  In the meantime, we’re in a 40-day period during which we fast.  The fasting period began on the 18th of March (”Katharí  Deftera” our Mardí Gras) and  will end the midnight before Easter Sunday.  Fasting the Orthodox way means no meat, no fish, no dairy, no eggs.  That leaves us with a bunch of vegetables, legumes, fruit and some sea food to eat… But what about pastry? How do we cope with our need, our desire for something sweet, for a dessert? In today’s post we’ve got a typical example of a Greek dessert, totally suitable for the fasting period. It’s called ”halvás” and it’s sort of a semolina and olive oil pudding.

 

halvas

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