Hello everyone!

Lent, otherwise known as the Great Fast, has commenced officially!

As I delve into more of the traditions of the Catholic Church, I've become very fascinated with the everyday lay traditions that reflect certain seasons of the Church year. And that includes things like food.

In previous years, I had not given much of a thought to what I ate during Lent, but the quantity of it. In other words, attacking it from the fasting angle. That, unfortunately, ended rather disastrously for me every time - it was a good thing that I hadn't learned about the fast-till-3pm tradition, otherwise, I would have been in serious trouble!

But then, I saw this excerpt from a book by Maria von Trapp, which was obtained HERE.

"Abstinence in the old times (and the old times reached almost to the days of our grandparents) meant that nothing was eaten (or kept in the house) which comes from animals: no meat, no fish, no lard, no milk, butter, cheese, cream. The Lenten fare consisted exclusively of vegetables, fruit, and a bread made of flour and water and salt."                  ~ Maria von Trapp, Around the Year with the von Trapp Family.

Sounds like veganism, doesn't it?

In practice, it is. Except that there is a completely different motive behind it. In the case of abstinence, it's giving it up as penance for sins instead of "respect for animals". A position that I may have to address sometime in the future...

There was also a practical aspect for this pre-1955 abstinence. Before the mass commercialization of agriculture, a lot of animal products were heavily regulated by natural seasons. During late winter/early spring, cows were heavily pregnant and game was lean and scarce. And, in the really olden times, it was imperative to clear out the old stores and animal products before the spring weather hit. Otherwise, there would be spoilage and waste.

Now I will admit when I first heard of this form of abstinence, I looked at it askance too. The laws of abstinence in the Catholic Church have since been relaxed...but maybe they've been too relaxed.

I mean, if demons are driven out by prayer and fasting, and there certainly is a lot of demonry going on around here, then surely it wouldn't be a bad idea to turn back to some of those older practices??

This is what lead me to adopt the practice of doing that "vegan" abstinence on Ash Wednesday last year (I would have done it Good Friday too, but I think I was sick then). And I will admit...it was HARD - I remember that my breakfast was a grapefruit (which is NOT my favorite citrus by any means) and my lunch was a veggie salad and plain quinoa, the latter of which wasn't prepped right and tasted terrible.

This year on Ash Wednesday, I wanted to try it again, and maybe have a better margin of success.

After much pleading, I got a recipe from Lia for a sweet potato quinoa chili that her mom had made a few times when I was there that I had remembered liking a lot. I was going to beat that quinoa monster if it killed me.

Since Wednesday is my night to cook at my house, I decided to make that, in addition to a salad and some soft pretzels.

I started Ash Wednesday off by...veggie shopping. On an empty stomach too, which is always a super super bad idea. 

Copyright: Catherine Hawthorn

You see, we're terrible about vegetable consumption in my immediate family. Even though we always have a vegetable with our dinners, we tend to cycle through 4 different frozen vegetables on a regular basis. #boring. Salads don't make it on the table as often either.

When I was in college, I would have a salad almost every other day, especially at the end of my college career. I mean, there was a salad bar there, with yummy fresh spinach and other goodies. How else am I going to get my vitamins and minerals up? My aunt was also instrumental in introducing me to other cool vegetables like the bok choy you can see in the picture.

In this veggie haul, I got bok choy, lettuce, fresh spinach, turnips, onions, radishes, cucumbers, parsnips, sweet potatoes, and a weird cabbage-like vegetable called a radiccho. I was super miffed that there wasn't any jimaca or bell peppers worth buying, though I did get frozen pepper strips. Oh and the canned tomatoes too, but that was for the chili. And a can of water chestnuts because I love those things. Should have bought some shallots too, darn.

Anyway....

After I snuck the veggies into the house, it was time to start in on the pretzels!

And of course I forgot to get pictures of the making of....*facepalm*.

This has been a tradition of mine for at least two years running to make whole-wheat soft pretzels. I use a recipe called Buttery Soft Pretzels that you can find on Allrecipes.com. Weird that they call it that when there is no butter in them but whatever. The only thing I do different for that recipe is that I use half whole-wheat and half all purpose flour rather than have it all white flour. To me, it gives a whole different flavor, and it's slightly more healthy.

Copyright: Catherine Hawthorn

Right after the pretzels were done, it was time to start in on making the chili. I soaked the quinoa for an hour, which I've never done, but will do from now on because it helped the taste so much.

First thing was the onion, shallot and sweet potato were sauteed...though half of it DID burn before the potatoes were cooked enough. Knew I should have chopped those smaller.

Then I put the crushed tomatoes and the frozen corn in the stock pot, adding in the cumin and the chili powder (because that's what makes it CHILI after all....*glares at purist brothers who insist otherwise*

The veggies went in and the heat was turned up. The quinoa was added last.

This was BEFORE the quinoa really swelled up and sucked all the liquid out. Copyright: Catherine Hawthorn

I left it to simmer as I was finishing the salads, though admittedly, I should have taken it off the heat before hand as the quinoa really sucked up a lot of liquid. I now understand why there was a really teeny note that there should have been TWO large cans of tomatoes rather than one. Ooops.

Come to think of it, I probably could have added a little more spice too....but there were family members to consider * cough, my mother cough*. Though, said family member actually LIKED it, so maybe a little more spice wouldn't have hurt that much....

In the midst of all that, there were of course salads to be prepped. I was reminded that hand chopping vegetables takes FOREVER. I should really invest in one of those box-veggie-cutter things you see on those ads on TV - Chop Magic I think is the one....

Mine's the boring one in the corner....the one with no cheese on it *sadface* Copyright: Catherine Hawthorn

All that food had to be scarfed down pretty fast, as we had to hurry in order to get to church on time, LOL. Stinks having an hour to commute to Mass sometimes.

I will say though, that today was the first successful fast and abstinence that I've ever had in the entire history that I've been attempting to do this (which would be about 7 years now). It wasn't without side effects, mind you, but at least I didn't have a dip in sugar or any serious nausea.

I hope to explore this topic more, maybe with a post about ideas on abstinence meals? As proven above, I'm sure there is a hidden variety, even with the restrictions :)

Old-fashionably yours,

Catherine

P.S. If anyone is looking for my Lenten post from this year that Lia was referencing in her post, I regret to announce that I've taken it down. Not because of any real *problem* with the post itself, or with anyone in particular. It was a personal decision to keep my penances more private (and hopefully, both keep them better and that they be more pleasing to God).