The Syrian Christian Fasting Table

In Syria, Christian cooking goes by a name of its own: the siyami kitchen, the fasting kitchen. It is not a separate list of recipes but a way of laying a table that one restriction produced. On fasting days meat, dairy and eggs come off; the table is built on legumes and olive oil. One detail matters on the ground. In the rule of the Syriac Orthodox Church, fish, seafood and honey are not part of the fast. So on the coast and in the Valley of the Christians the table is far from narrow.

What is on the table

The fixtures: fatteh, falafel, ful, hummus, vine leaves rolled in olive oil, fattoush and tabbouleh. Each of these has its own entry on this site; what brings them to the same table is this calendar. In northern Syria the list takes in rishta, bulgur with tomato, mallow leaves in olive oil and rabi’iyeh. The sweets acknowledge the fast too: balouza, mushabbak, burma, walnut qatayef and khabisa made with grape molasses — not one of them contains dairy.

What comes off, and on which days

Great Lent is commonly called the forty days; the Syriac Orthodox Church counts it, with Holy Week, as seven weeks. Abstinence in the sense of going without food is not practised on Saturdays and Sundays. Beyond Great Lent there are Wednesdays and Fridays all year and the three days of the Fast of Nineveh. Then the August days of the Fast of the Virgin, and the fast that begins on 15 December and runs to Christmas. In other words, the fasting season is not one season.

Good Friday and the sorrowful kibbeh

In Syriac communities the dish of Good Friday is the sorrowful kibbeh: a kibbeh that is hollow, with no meat in it. The story behind the name rests on Christians who were pressed to break the fast and made something that looked like meat from the outside. The church treats this as folk tradition rather than doctrine, and the detail changes with whoever is telling it.

What it means for a visitor

If your visit falls in Great Lent, the table you meet around the Valley of the Christians, Maaloula, Saidnaya and Deir Mar Musa will have no meat on it. That is not a shortfall. It is the rule of that week. Easter falls on different dates for different churches, so the day the fast begins shifts as well. If you are planning a monastery visit, asking about the calendar in advance settles two things at once: the day the door is open, and what will be on the table.