What do they eat in monasteries? What the monks of the Holy Mountain eat and live to a ripe old age: the secrets of Athos. Small home charter

Recently, I began to notice that when talking about products and dishes “monastic...”, or “like a monastery...”, people mean: “high-quality”, “real”, “delicious”. Honey, bread, lunch...

Observing this specifically, it struck me that this trend is not only expanding, but is already being used by various product manufacturers, conscientious and not so conscientious. Then the question arose: what is modern monastic food, monastic products? What is behind consumer recognition - traditional respect for the religious way of life, which excludes deception and laziness, or the absence of clear government quality guidelines, the same GOSTs, for example?

For answers to these questions, we turned to Father Micah, hieromonk of the St. Daniel Monastery. The path that led this wonderful man to the church was not easy.

Let's start with the fact that Father Mikhei was a paratrooper and knows the concept of a “hot spot” firsthand. Already, while in the monastery, Father Micah performed difficult obediences: establishing a monastery in the Ryazan region, organizing the monastery apiary, the duties of a cellarer in the St. Daniel Monastery itself, and many others that I do not know about.

As a result, we were able to draw a picture from the questions and answers of how a Russian Orthodox monastery lives today: what it produces, what it eats, who it feeds and how.

website:It is known that the absolute majority of monasteries in Rus' were self-sufficient in the production, storage and distribution of products. The monasteries owned gardens, fields, orchards, ponds and apiaries. Also, since ancient times, the tradition of feeding monastic products not only to the brethren, but also to workers, pilgrims, students, and guests has been preserved. Is this tradition alive in St. Daniel's Monastery now?

O. Micah: Since centuries in Rus', monasteries have been not only centers of spiritual life, but also economic ones. Not only did they feed themselves, but they also carried out breeding work, grew new varieties of plants, looked for and found new ways to store and preserve food. For many hundreds of years, monasteries not only fed themselves, but also widely helped those in need. Both in normal times and, especially, in war years, in lean periods, in times of epidemics.

It’s no different in the monastery: today the economy of the St. Daniel’s Monastery feeds up to 900 people every day. We have just over 80 brethren, almost 400 lay workers. And also pilgrims, guests of the monastery, those in need - every day the monastery kitchen, with God's help, provides food for all these people.

Most of the products we have are of our own production. This includes flour from monastery fields in the Ryazan region, vegetables, fruits, and honey. We mostly buy fish for now, but we want to dig ponds there, on the lands of the monastery, and start growing fish. We keep cows for butter, cottage cheese, milk. They don’t eat meat in the monastery.

website:How did the revival of the monastic economy begin?

O. Micah: The revival of the monastery economy began from the moment it was transferred to the Church in 1983. For five next years the monastery as a whole was restored, and the economy supporting it began to function. However, even now we are only moving towards a truly independent structure that produces, preserves and nourishes.

Until 1917, the monastery had extensive lands, arable lands, apiaries, and ponds. There were many and good products. The monastery sold a lot of things, incl. in their own shops and stores. People have always loved them - both Muscovites and pilgrims. Then everything was destroyed, literally - to the ground.

But over the past 17 years, of course, a lot of progress has been made. If you look back today, you see how much we, with God’s help, have achieved! And we ourselves grow wheat on the monastery lands, grind flour, and bake our famous baked goods. And we grow and preserve all the necessary vegetables: we can them, ferment them, and salt them.

And now the monastery has more than one apiary - in the Moscow region on the monastery farm, near Ryazan, near Anapa and from Altai, honey is also supplied from the apiaries of the Church of the Archangel Michael. The largest apiary is near Ryazan. Now we have about 300 hives here and during the season we manage to obtain more than 10 varieties of honey in our apiaries. These include sweet clover, linden, buckwheat, and honeys of forest and field herbs. Every new season Before the bees fly out, special prayers are performed to consecrate the apiary, and the beekeepers receive a blessing for the upcoming work.

Honey such a product is God's blessing. You need to treat him that way. After all, if you put an apiary, for example, near the road, there will be a lot of things coming out of the exhaust pipes: lead and all sorts of heavy metals. And the bees also collect all this and transfer it to honey. We are responsible before God for the fact that we have apiaries in good, environmentally friendly places, and so we offer pure honey to people.

We love our people and want people to be healthy and beautiful and for children to be born healthy. Beekeeping is a traditional Russian trade. Back in the 16th century they said: “Russia is a country where honey flows.” Honey was made in almost every home. It was also supplied abroad along with wax. All Russian people ate honey. This is a necessary product for every person.

It is now customary for us to eat honey only during illness. Only this is wrong. You should eat honey three times a day: a spoonful in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening. Honey contains everything the body needs, including vitamins. After all, honey is a natural product that people have been eating for centuries to improve their health. Warriors of the past always carried honey with them on campaigns. By eating it, they increased their strength before the upcoming battle

They began to revive the tradition of monastery bread. People come for our baked goods from all over Moscow and even from the Moscow region. A variety of pies, prepared according to old monastery recipes, are very popular. Made with soul - and people like it!

Our parishioners and guests of the monastery really appreciate the fact that we use recipes not only from our monastery, but also from other holy places: for example, we have yeast-free bread baked according to Athonite recipes, and there is bread from the sisters from the Serpukhov convent.

website:And all this is managed by the small brethren of the St. Daniel Monastery?

O. Micah: Of course not! We are helped by both lay workers and voluntary assistants. There really are few monks, especially those who know how to work on earth. Many came to the monastery from cities, some are not able to do physical labor. But work in honey apiaries is called “sweet hard labor”...

Not everyone knows how much work one has to put in to ensure that good food ends up on the table of the monastery.

website:Please tell us about the monastery food system. What products and dishes make up the monastery table for the brethren?

O. Micah: We do not come to the monastery to eat deliciously - we come to achieve the Kingdom of Heaven through labor, prayer and obedience. The highest virtues are fasting, prayer, renunciation of worldly temptations and obedience.

By the way, according to the monastery charter, there are about 200 fasting days a year. Fasts are divided into multi-day (Great, Peter the Great, Dormition and Christmas) and one-day (Wednesday, Friday of each week). It was during the days of abstinence from fast food that thousands of original, simple dishes available to the population were developed in the monastery refectories.

The main difference between the monastic table and the secular one is that we do not eat meat. In the monastery they eat vegetables, cereals, dairy products, baked goods, fish, and mushrooms. The monastery's storerooms always stock a lot of sauerkraut, cucumbers, tomatoes, and mushrooms.

The cellarer monitors this, and both the monastic brothers and the lay workers do it. And it goes to everyone’s table without exception. According to the rules, monks eat only twice a day: lunch and dinner. The cellarer of the monastery especially makes sure that the meals are tasty, varied and maintain strength - after all, the interval before meals is long, and no one sits idly by, everyone has their own housework - obedience.

The weekday menu usually consists of fish soup, if allowed on that day, pickle soup, vegetable, mushroom or milk soup and fish with a side dish. For dessert - tea, compote or jelly, pies, cookies. The Sunday menu consists of fish borscht, fried fish with a side dish of mashed potatoes or rice with vegetables, fresh vegetables, sliced ​​fish and products from the monastery farmstead - cheese, sour cream and milk. On the holidays of Christmas and Easter, a festive menu is served at the meal.

We have Father Hermogenes - he was the cellarer of the monastery for more than 10 years, so he even wrote a book about the monastery meal, “The Kitchen of Father Hermogenes.” On this moment cellarer in the monastery of Fr. Theognostus. I was a cellarer for several years, and before that I carried out obedience in the construction of a skete, the restoration of the Church of the Archangel Michael, taking care of apiaries, a bakery...

Now I have obedience - I offer monastery products for Muscovites, in a honey shop and 2 monastery stores “Monastic Honey” and “Monastic Grocery Store”, where you can buy our products: honey, beekeeping products, honey jam, an assortment of fish, porridge, monastery baked goods - yeast-free bread, pies, health products: non-alcoholic balms, sbitn, teas, herbs.

I also have an obedience in the department of making posters of spiritual and patriotic content by modern and classical artists.

website:We thank you, Father Micah, for your attention and story. We wish you joy in your work!

PRAYERS BEFORE AND AFTER EATINGFOOD

BEFORE EATING

Our Father, who art in heaven! Hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, as it is in heaven and on earth. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our debts, just as we forgive our debtors; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. The eyes of all trust in You, Lord, and You give them food in good season, You open Your generous hand and fulfill every animal’s good will.

AFTER EATING

We thank Thee, Christ our God, for Thou hast filled us with Thy earthly blessings; Do not deprive us of Your Heavenly Kingdom, but as You came among Your disciples, Savior, give them peace, come to us and save us.

SECRET PRAYER BEFORE EATING FOOD FOR IMMEDIATE DIET (prayer for weight loss)

I also pray to You, Lord, deliver me from satiety and lust and grant me in peace of mind to reverently accept Your generous gifts, so that by tasting them, I will receive strengthening of my mental and physical strength to serve You, Lord, in the short remainder of my life on Earth.

Editor's note

Dear readers!

On November 28, Orthodox Christians begin the Nativity Fast. This is one of four multi-day fasts in Orthodoxy, which prepares believers for the bright holiday of the Nativity of Christ. This fast is less strict than the Great and Dormition fasts, but even here questions arise: what can and cannot be eaten, what Orthodox holidays at this time every believer must know about, who is allowed indulgences, is there any benefit to the soul if you observe only physical fasting?. Micah. These days Fr. Micah. And then at the meeting you will receive comprehensive answers to them.

I always thought that monastic food was bread and water. But one day I found myself in the monastery refectory - and my opinion completely changed. I have never tasted more delicious Lenten dishes in my life. What's the secret? The monks of the St. Panteleimon Monastery, on Mount Athos, always welcome pilgrims cordially. The law of hospitality is strictly observed here - first feed, then ask questions. However, no one will bother you with questions even after dinner: everyone, they believe, has their own way to the temple.

We were not at all surprised by the modesty of the meal: bread, buckwheat porridge, seasoned with stewed vegetables, pea soup with herbs (which you wouldn’t even look at in worldly life and certainly wouldn’t covet), baked potatoes with sauerkraut, fresh cucumbers and kvass. There were also olives (by the way, as they explained to us, they can be eaten with pits) and dry red wine (on the bottom of the mug). But the taste of these dishes... It amazed us!

The most appropriate word in this case is ‘unearthly’. I asked one of the monks about this. He silently raised his eyes to the sky and quietly, without the slightest hint of didacticism or edification, answered: “It is important with what thoughts, not to mention words, a person begins preparing food and the meal itself. Here is what is written about this in the ‘Kievo-Pechersk Patericon’: ‘It was given to one old man to see how the same food differed: those who blasphemed food ate sewage, those who praised it ate honey. But when you eat or drink, glorify God, because he who blasphemes harms himself.

The sauerkraut came with carrots, beets and aromatic dill seeds. It was they who gave the winter preparation familiar to us, Russians, an amazing taste. And, as the monks said, such cabbage is very useful for good stomach function. Above the mounds of cabbage, laid out in simple aluminum bowls, towered a glistening soaked apple. Several of these apples must be placed in each tub when sauerkraut is sauerkraut. They also give it a special aroma.

Meat delicacies and baked goods are not for Athonite monks. In their opinion, gluttony is a dangerous trait that entails bodily illnesses and various mental illnesses. Fatty foods ‘salt the soul’, and sauces and canned food ‘thin the body’. For Athonite monks, eating is a spiritual process, somewhat of a ritual act.

Prayer - while preparing a particular dish (in this case it will definitely succeed), a short prayer before sitting down at the table, prayer after eating food. And the very setting of the spacious and bright refectory, the walls and ceiling of which are painted with paintings of biblical scenes, turns a modest monastic dinner into a festive feast and feast for the soul. “So a layman’s kitchen,” the monk told me, “should not be a place of family squabbles and political discussions, but just a refectory.”

Most recently, I had the opportunity to visit the Goritsky Resurrection Convent, which opened in 1999. Sisters Yulia and Nadezhda carried out obedience in the monastery refectory. They were young, each of them hardly looked like they were a little over twenty, but they handled the kitchen utensils confidently and without fuss. New items of technological progress, such as mixers and vegetable cutters, have bypassed these holy places.

The nuns do everything themselves: and the dough is kneaded in large vats by hand, and the butter is churned by hand using buttermilk. And the monastic meal is prepared not on gas in a non-stick cookware, but on a wood-burning stove, in cast iron pots. That’s why, the nuns say, it turns out more tasty, rich and aromatic.

I watched the youngest Nadezhda shredding cabbage and admired: the strips were very thin, one to one, as if each one had been measured out. She lightly salted it, sprinkled it with vegetable oil, put a flower made of beads of thawed cranberries and sprigs of dill on top - not a dish, but a picture, it’s a shame to even eat it, and put it aside with the words; ‘Let the cabbage give juice, then you can put it on the table.’

I heard somewhere that monks should not arrange their meals beautifully, so I asked Sister Nadezhda about this. “Well,” she answered, “God cannot be against beauty, as long as it comes from a pure heart, does not become an end in itself and does not lead to bitterness if something does not work out.” “In general, I noticed,” she added, “that I began to cook very well here, although I had never studied it, and had not yet accumulated much worldly culinary wisdom. It’s just that when you have peace in your soul and love for the world and those who live in it, everything you do turns out well.”

As she spoke, she was cutting up a herring to prepare a jellied herring made from salted herring, chopped with mushrooms. The nun had soaked dried white mushrooms in cold water in advance and now put them on the fire. After they were cooked, I passed them through a meat grinder and mixed them with finely chopped herring fillets. She added black pepper and chopped onion to the minced meat and... began to paint a new culinary still life.

I formed a herring from the prepared minced meat, carefully placed the head and tail, placed small parsley around it, small jugs of boiled carrots and filled everything with mushroom broth mixed with swollen gelatin. The result was a lake with delicious fish inside.

“You can,” she said, seeing my enthusiastic look, “decorate your dish as you wish.” And it is not necessary to cook it using dried mushrooms. It’s just that my sisters and I collected so many of them over the summer and fall... And if you don’t have dried ones, take regular champignons. Although, in my opinion, not a single mushroom grown in captivity can compare with forest mushrooms.

They give off such a spirit!.. It must be said that the dinner for which Sister Nadezhda prepared her “culinary masterpieces” was not a festive one, and among the guests there were only a few travelers like me, who were real It’s a stretch to call them pilgrims. But here everyone is accepted and they don’t ask how strong your faith is: if you came, it means your soul is asking.

In addition to the aspic, Nadezhda prepared several more unusual mushroom dishes. For example, mushroom cheese, caviar and some incredibly tasty cold appetizer. Dried mushrooms for it are soaked in water for an hour, and then boiled in salted water until tender. They, as the nuns said, can be replaced with fresh ones: champignons or oyster mushrooms.

In this case, just boil the mushrooms, chop finely, mix with chopped onions, add salt if necessary and pour over the sauce. It is prepared from grated horseradish, diluted with a small amount of strong bread kvass and mushroom broth. The dish is not spicy, but only with a slight aftertaste of horseradish, which should not overwhelm the taste of the mushrooms.

Among the cold appetizers on the table there was also boiled beets in a spicy sauce made from boiled egg yolks, grated horseradish and vegetable oil. This dish was familiar to me, but this was the first time I tried boiled beans fried in oil - very tasty. The dish, as my sisters told me, is simple to prepare, but takes quite a long time.

The beans must first be soaked in water for 6-10 hours, then boiled in salted water until tender, but not boiled, drained in a colander, lightly dried in the fresh air and only then fried in vegetable oil until golden brown. A couple of minutes before it’s ready, add sautéed onions to the cauldron, add salt, season to taste and remove from heat. The beans are served cold.

While Nadezhda was conjuring (although this word is not very suitable for a nun) over cold dishes, Yulia was preparing the first and second. For starters there was monastery borscht with beans and kalya (soup cooked in cucumber brine) with fish. For the second course - pilaf with vegetables and raisins, lean cabbage rolls, pumpkin perepecha - something like pumpkin casserole with rice: pumpkin and rice for this dish are first boiled separately from each other, then mixed, and separately beaten whites and yolks are added to the minced meat and put everything in a greased form.

It turns out something between baked goods and a main course. For dessert, the sisters prepared a pie with apples and pies with poppy seeds and honey - makovniki. And although the dough was kneaded without using butter, it turned out fluffy, tender, and the filling... Baking with poppy seeds is generally my weakness.

As you can see, the nuns had a meal and treated the pilgrims without any meat at all. But believe me, we didn’t even notice it. On fasting days, the number of dishes on the table, as the nuns said, decreases, fish, eggs, and dairy products disappear. But the meal does not become less tasty and, of course, remains just as satisfying.

Saying goodbye to the hospitable sisters, I asked: had they heard about the ‘Angel Curls’ jam? They say that the Virgin Mary gave this recipe to the abbess of one of the Spanish monasteries on the night before Christmas. Pumpkin fibers (in which the seeds are hidden) are boiled in sugar syrup along with pureed hazelnuts. ‘No,’ said the nuns, ‘we haven’t heard, but we also make jam from pumpkin fibers, which most housewives simply throw away. You just need to separate the fibers from the pulp and seeds, dry them slightly (air dry).

Prepare sugar syrup, pour it over the fibers, leave for a day, and then cook like our jams - for five minutes: 3-4 times for five to seven minutes, (It is important after each cooking to completely cool the jam and only then put it on the fire again.) Try it and you can cook monastic cuisine at home. Perhaps then the upcoming post will not seem so bland and difficult.

Potatoes “in their uniform” in the monastery are jokingly called “in a cassock” - after all, monks do not wear uniforms

Recently, I began to notice that when talking about products and dishes “monastic...”, or “like a monastery...”, people mean: “high-quality”, “real”, “delicious”. Honey, bread, lunch...

Observing this specifically, it struck me that this trend is not only expanding, but is already being used by various product manufacturers, conscientious and not so conscientious. Then the question arose: what is modern monastic food, monastic products? What is behind consumer recognition - traditional respect for the religious way of life, which excludes deception and laziness, or the absence of clear government quality guidelines, the same GOSTs, for example?

For answers to these questions, we turned to Father Micah, hieromonk of the St. Daniel Monastery. The path that led this wonderful man to the church was not easy.

Let's start with the fact that Father Mikhei was a paratrooper and knows the concept of a “hot spot” firsthand. Already, while in the monastery, Father Micah performed difficult obediences: establishing a monastery in the Ryazan region, organizing the monastery apiary, the duties of a cellarer in the St. Daniel Monastery itself, and many others that I do not know about.

As a result, we were able to draw a picture from the questions and answers of how a Russian Orthodox monastery lives today: what it produces, what it eats, who it feeds and how.

AIF.RU: It is known that the absolute majority of monasteries in Rus' were self-sufficient in the production, storage and distribution of products. The monasteries owned gardens, fields, orchards, ponds and apiaries. Also, since ancient times, the tradition of feeding monastic products not only to the brethren, but also to workers, pilgrims, students, and guests has been preserved. Is this tradition alive in St. Daniel's Monastery now?

O. Micah: Since centuries in Rus', monasteries have been not only centers of spiritual life, but also economic ones. Not only did they feed themselves, but they also carried out breeding work, grew new varieties of plants, looked for and found new ways to store and preserve food. For many hundreds of years, monasteries not only fed themselves, but also widely helped those in need. Both in normal times and, especially, in war years, in lean periods, in times of epidemics.

It’s no different in the monastery: today the economy of the St. Daniel’s Monastery feeds up to 900 people every day. We have just over 80 brethren, almost 400 lay workers. And also pilgrims, guests of the monastery, those in need - every day the monastery kitchen, with God’s help, provides food for all these people.

Most of the products we have are of our own production. This includes flour from monastery fields in the Ryazan region, vegetables, fruits, and honey. We mostly buy fish for now, but we want to dig ponds there, on the lands of the monastery, and start growing fish. We keep cows for butter, cottage cheese, milk. They don’t eat meat in the monastery.

— How did the revival of the monastery economy begin?

— The revival of the monastery economy began from the moment it was transferred to the Church in 1983. Over the next five years, the monastery as a whole was restored, and the economy supporting it began to function. However, even now we are only moving towards a truly independent structure that produces, preserves and nourishes.

Until 1917, the monastery had extensive lands, arable lands, apiaries, and ponds. There were many and good products. The monastery sold a lot of things, incl. in their own shops and stores. People have always loved them - both Muscovites and pilgrims. Then everything was destroyed, literally - to the ground.

But over the past 17 years, of course, a lot of progress has been made. If you look back today, you see how much we, with God’s help, have achieved! And we ourselves grow wheat on the monastery lands, grind flour, and bake our famous baked goods. And we grow and preserve all the necessary vegetables: we can them, ferment them, and salt them.

And now the monastery has more than one apiary - in the Moscow region on the monastery farm, near Ryazan, near Anapa and from Altai, honey is also supplied from the apiaries of the Church of the Archangel Michael. The largest apiary is near Ryazan. Now we have about 300 hives here and during the season we manage to obtain more than 10 varieties of honey in our apiaries. These include sweet clover, linden, buckwheat, and honeys of forest and field herbs. Every new season, before the bees fly out, special prayers are held to consecrate the apiary, and the beekeepers receive a blessing for the upcoming work.

Honey such a product is God's blessing. You need to treat him that way. After all, if you put an apiary, for example, near the road, there will be a lot of things coming out of the exhaust pipes: lead and all sorts of heavy metals. And the bees also collect all this and transfer it to honey. We are responsible before God for the fact that we have apiaries in good, environmentally friendly places, and so we offer pure honey to people.

We love our people and want people to be healthy and beautiful and for children to be born healthy. Beekeeping is a traditional Russian trade. Back in the 16th century they said: “Russia is a country where honey flows.” Honey was made in almost every home. It was also supplied abroad along with wax. All Russian people ate honey. This is a necessary product for every person.

It is now customary for us to eat honey only during illness. Only this is wrong. You should eat honey three times a day: a spoonful in the morning, in the afternoon and in the evening. Honey contains everything the body needs, including vitamins. After all, honey is a natural product that people have been eating for centuries to improve their health. Warriors of the past always carried honey with them on campaigns. By eating it, they increased their strength before the upcoming battle

They began to revive the tradition of monastery bread. People come for our baked goods from all over Moscow and even from the Moscow region. A variety of pies, prepared according to old monastery recipes, are very popular. Made with soul - and people like it!

Our parishioners and guests of the monastery really appreciate the fact that we use recipes not only from our monastery, but also from other holy places: for example, we have yeast-free bread baked according to Athonite recipes, and there is bread from the sisters from the Serpukhov convent.

— And all this is managed by the small brethren of the St. Daniel Monastery?

— Of course not! We are helped by both lay workers and voluntary assistants. There really are few monks, especially those who know how to work on earth. Many came to the monastery from cities, some are not able to do physical labor. But work in honey apiaries is called “sweet hard labor”...

Not everyone knows how much work has to be done to ensure that good food reaches the table of the monastery.

— Please tell us about the monastery food system. What products and dishes make up the monastery table for the brethren?

— We do not come to the monastery to eat delicious food - we come to achieve the Kingdom of Heaven through labor, prayer and obedience. The highest virtues are fasting, prayer, renunciation of worldly temptations and obedience.

By the way, according to the monastery charter, there are about 200 fasting days a year. Fasts are divided into multi-day (Great, Peter the Great, Dormition and Christmas) and one-day (Wednesday, Friday of each week). It was during the days of abstinence from fast food that thousands of original, simple dishes available to the population were developed in the monastery refectories.

The main difference between the monastic table and the secular one is that we do not eat meat. In the monastery they eat vegetables, cereals, dairy products, baked goods, fish, and mushrooms. The monastery's storerooms always stock a lot of sauerkraut, cucumbers, tomatoes, and mushrooms.

The cellarer monitors this, and both the monastic brothers and the lay workers do it. And it goes to everyone’s table without exception. According to the rules, monks eat only twice a day: lunch and dinner. The cellarer of the monastery especially makes sure that the meals are tasty, varied and maintain strength - after all, the interval before meals is long, and no one sits idly by, everyone has their own housework - obedience.

The weekday menu usually consists of fish soup, if allowed on that day, pickle soup, vegetable, mushroom or milk soup and fish with a side dish. For dessert - tea, compote or jelly, pies, cookies. The Sunday menu consists of fish borscht, fried fish with a side dish of mashed potatoes or rice with vegetables, fresh vegetables, sliced ​​fish and products from the monastery farmstead - cheese, sour cream and milk. On the holidays of Christmas and Easter, a festive menu is served at the meal.

We have Father Hermogenes - he was the cellarer of the monastery for more than 10 years, so he even wrote a book about the monastery meal, “The Kitchen of Father Hermogenes.” At the moment, the cellarer in the monastery is Fr. Theognostus. I was a cellarer for several years, and before that I carried out obedience in the construction of a skete, the restoration of the Church of the Archangel Michael, taking care of apiaries, a bakery...

Now I have obedience - I offer monastic products for Muscovites, in a honey shop and 2 monastery stores “Monastic Honey” and “Monastic Grocery Store”, where you can buy our products: honey, beekeeping products, honey jam, an assortment of fish, porridge, monastery baked goods - yeast-free bread, pies, health products: non-alcoholic balms, sbitn, teas, herbs.

I also have an obedience in the department of making posters of spiritual and patriotic content by modern and classical artists.

— We thank you, Father Micah, for your attention and story. We wish you joy in your work!

20099 21

I I always thought that monastic food was bread and water. But one day I found myself in the monastery refectory - and my opinion completely changed. I have never tasted more delicious Lenten dishes in my life. What's the secret?

The monks of the St. Panteleimon Monastery, on Mount Athos, always welcome pilgrims cordially. The law of hospitality is strictly observed here - first feed, then ask questions. However, no one will bother you with questions even after dinner: everyone, they believe, has their own way to the temple.
We were not at all surprised by the modesty of the meal: bread, buckwheat porridge, seasoned with stewed vegetables, pea soup with herbs (which you wouldn’t even look at in worldly life and certainly wouldn’t covet), baked potatoes with sauerkraut, fresh cucumbers and kvass. There were also olives (by the way, as they explained to us, they can be eaten with pits) and dry red wine (on the bottom of the mug). But the taste of these dishes... It amazed us! The most appropriate word in this case is “unearthly.” I asked one of the monks about this. He silently raised his eyes to the sky and quietly, without the slightest hint of didacticism or edification, answered: “It is important with what thoughts, not to mention words, a person begins preparing food and the meal itself. This is what is written about this in Kiev. Pechersk Patericon": "It was given to one old man to see how the same food differed: those who blasphemed food ate uncleanness, those who praised it ate honey. But when you eat or drink, glorify God, because he who blasphemes harms himself.”
The sauerkraut came with carrots, beets and aromatic dill seeds. It was they who gave the winter preparation familiar to us, Russians, an amazing taste. And, as the monks said, such cabbage is very useful for good stomach function. Above the mounds of cabbage, laid out in simple aluminum bowls, towered a glistening soaked apple. Several of these apples must be placed in each tub when sauerkraut is sauerkraut. They also give it a special aroma.

Meat delicacies and baked goods are not for Athonite monks. In their opinion, gluttony is a dangerous trait that entails bodily illnesses and various mental illnesses. Fatty foods “salt the soul,” and sauces and canned food “thin the body.” For Athonite monks, eating is a spiritual process, somewhat of a ritual act. Prayer - while preparing a particular dish (in this case it will definitely succeed), a short prayer before sitting down at the table, prayer after eating food. And the very setting of the spacious and bright refectory, the walls and ceiling of which are painted with paintings of biblical scenes, turns a modest monastic dinner into a festive feast and feast for the soul. “In the same way, a layman’s kitchen,” the monk told me, “should not be a place of family squabbles and political discussions, but only a refectory.”

Most recently, I had the opportunity to visit the Goritsky Resurrection Convent, which opened in 1999. Sisters Yulia and Nadezhda carried out obedience in the monastery refectory. They were young, each of them hardly looked like they were a little over twenty, but they handled the kitchen utensils confidently and without fuss. New items of technological progress, such as mixers and vegetable cutters, have bypassed these holy places. The nuns do everything themselves: they knead the dough in large vats with their hands, and churn the butter with hand buttermilk. And the monastic meal is prepared not on gas in a non-stick cookware, but on a wood-burning stove, in cast iron pots. That’s why, the nuns say, it turns out more tasty, rich and aromatic.
I watched the youngest Nadezhda shredding cabbage and admired: the strips were very thin, one to one, as if each one had been measured out. She lightly salted it, sprinkled it with vegetable oil, put a flower of thawed cranberry beads and dill sprigs on top - not a dish, but a picture, it’s a pity to even eat it, and put it aside with the words; “Let the cabbage give juice, then you can put it on the table.”
I heard somewhere that monks should not arrange their meals beautifully, so I asked Sister Nadezhda about this. “Well,” she answered, “God cannot be against beauty, as long as it comes from a pure heart, does not become an end in itself and does not lead to bitterness if something does not work out. I actually noticed,” she added, “ "that I began to cook very well here, although I never learned it, and I haven’t yet accumulated much worldly culinary wisdom. It’s just that when you have peace in your soul and love for the world and those who live in it, everything you do turns out well."
As she spoke, she was cutting up a herring to prepare a jellied herring made from salted herring, chopped with mushrooms. The nun had soaked dried white mushrooms in cold water in advance and now put them on the fire. After they were cooked, I passed them through a meat grinder and mixed them with finely chopped herring fillets. I added black pepper and chopped onion to the minced meat and... started painting a new culinary still life. I shaped the prepared minced meat into a herring, carefully placed the head and tail, placed small sprigs of dill, parsley, and small jugs of boiled carrots around it and filled everything with mushroom broth mixed with swollen gelatin. The result was a lake with delicious fish inside. “You can,” she said, seeing my delighted look, “decorate your dish as you wish.” And it is not necessary to cook it using dried mushrooms. It’s just that my sisters and I collected so many of them over the summer and fall... And if you don’t have dried ones, take regular champignons. Although, in my opinion, not a single mushroom grown in captivity can compare with forest mushrooms. They give off such a spirit!.. It must be said that the dinner for which Sister Nadezhda prepared her “culinary masterpieces” was not a festive one, and among the guests there were only a few travelers like me, who were real It’s a stretch to call them pilgrims. But here everyone is accepted and they don’t ask how strong your faith is: if you came, it means your soul is asking.
In addition to the aspic, Nadezhda prepared several more unusual mushroom dishes. For example, mushroom cheese, caviar and some incredibly tasty cold appetizer. Dried mushrooms for it are soaked in water for an hour, and then boiled in salted water until tender. They, as the nuns said, can be replaced with fresh ones: champignons or oyster mushrooms. In this case, just boil the mushrooms, chop them finely, mix with chopped onions, add salt if necessary and pour over the sauce. It is prepared from grated horseradish, diluted with a small amount of strong bread kvass and mushroom broth. The dish is not spicy, but only with a slight aftertaste of horseradish, which should not overwhelm the taste of the mushrooms.
Among the cold appetizers on the table there was also boiled beets in a spicy sauce made from boiled egg yolks, grated horseradish and vegetable oil. This dish was familiar to me, but this was the first time I tried boiled beans fried in oil - very tasty. The dish, as my sisters told me, is simple to prepare, but takes quite a long time. The beans must first be soaked in water for 6-10 hours, then boiled in salted water until tender, but not boiled, drained in a colander, lightly dried in the fresh air and only then fried in vegetable oil until golden brown. A couple of minutes before it’s ready, add sautéed onions to the cauldron, add salt, season to taste and remove from heat. The beans are served cold.
While Nadezhda was conjuring (although this word is not very suitable for a nun) over cold dishes, Yulia was preparing the first and second. For starters there was monastery borscht with beans and kalya (soup cooked in cucumber brine) with fish. For the main course - pilaf with vegetables and raisins, lean cabbage rolls, pumpkin perepecha - something like pumpkin casserole with rice: pumpkin and rice for this dish are first boiled separately from each other, then mixed, and separately beaten whites and yolks are added to the minced meat and put everything in a greased form. It turns out something between baked goods and a main course. For dessert, the sisters prepared a pie with apples and pies with poppy seeds and honey - makovniki. And although the dough was kneaded without using butter, it turned out fluffy, tender, and the filling... Baking with poppy seeds is generally my weakness.
As you can see, the nuns had a meal and treated the pilgrims without any meat at all. But believe me, we didn’t even notice it. On fasting days, the number of dishes on the table, as the nuns said, decreases, fish, eggs, and dairy products disappear. But the meal does not become less tasty and, of course, remains just as satisfying.
Saying goodbye to the hospitable sisters, I asked: have they heard about the Angel Curls jam? They say that the Virgin Mary gave this recipe to the abbess of one of the Spanish monasteries on the night before Christmas. Pumpkin fibers (in which the seeds are hidden) are boiled in sugar syrup along with pureed hazelnuts. “No,” said the nuns, “we haven’t heard, but we also make jam from pumpkin fibers, which most housewives simply throw away. You just need to separate the fibers from the pulp and seeds, dry them slightly (air dry). Prepare sugar syrup, pour it over the fibers , leave for a day, and then cook like our jams - for five minutes: 3-4 times for five to seven minutes, (It is important after each cooking to completely cool the jam and only then put it on the fire again.)" Try and cook monastic cuisine at home . Perhaps then the upcoming post will not seem so bland and difficult.

Mushroom cheese

Wash the mushrooms, cover completely with water, add salt and cook until tender for 20 minutes. Drain the water, drain the mushrooms in a colander, pass through a meat grinder, add butter and mix with cheese. Place the resulting mass on clean gauze, roll into a ball and place under a press for an hour. Transfer the cheese cake to a plate, cut into slices, sprinkle with herbs and serve.

Kalya with fish

Wash the fish, cut into portions, add water (2 liters), add roots, bay leaf, pepper, salt and cook for 15 minutes. Place the salmon pieces in a separate dish, strain the broth, add sauerkraut and cook for 5-7 minutes. Finely chop the onion, place in a frying pan and sauté in oil for 3 minutes. Add diced cucumbers and cook for another 5 minutes, add flour, stir and lightly fry. Place the prepared dressing in the soup, bring to a boil, add fish, cucumber pickle and cook for 10 minutes. Serve with a slice of lemon on each plate and sprinkle with herbs.

Stuffed cabbage rolls with mushrooms

Wash the rice, add one and a half glasses of water and cook until half cooked (about 10 minutes). Wash the mushrooms, chop them, fry in oil (1 tablespoon) for 10 minutes. Chop the onion and sauté in oil (1 tablespoon) until golden brown, combine with mushrooms and rice, add salt, pepper and stir. Disassemble the cabbage into leaves, blanch in boiling water for 3-4 minutes and drain in a colander. Place a tablespoon of filling on each sheet and roll up the cabbage roll. Place the cabbage rolls in a greased fireproof dish (1 tablespoon), sprinkle oil (1 tablespoon) on top and simmer over low heat, covered, for 15 minutes. Serve sprinkled with herbs.

Makovnik

Knead the dough: dissolve sugar in warm water, add yeast, flour (1 tbsp), mix and place in a boiling place. When the dough rises (15 minutes), add salt, vegetable oil (2 tablespoons), the rest of the flour and knead the dough. Knead until it doesn't stick to your hands. Place the dough in the pan, cover with a lid and let rise (45 minutes). Place poppy seeds in a gauze bag and rinse. Melt honey in a water bath. Add the washed poppy seeds, stir and continue cooking, stirring, for 8-10 minutes. Cool. Roll out the dough thinly, spread the poppy seed filling over the entire surface, roll into a roll and place on a greased baking sheet (1 tablespoon), grease the top with the remaining oil and place in an oven preheated to 200 degrees. Bake for 10 minutes.

Vladimir Suprumenko

Located in picturesque mountains covered with dense forests, the Shaolin Monastery is not only the cradle of Chan Buddhism, but also one of the centers of the development of Wushu in China. Beauty of nature, Fresh air and peace, so necessary for meditation, active activities martial arts and medicine provide excellent conditions for healthy image the lives of monks, searching for methods of “nurturing life” and prolonging it.

1. Constantly staying in the Chan state

For one thousand four hundred years, starting from 495 AD, when the monastery was founded, its inhabitants strictly observed the norms of Chan Buddhism bequeathed by Damo: daily prolonged meditation, “improving the heart and nurturing the nature,” striving “for emptiness.” . A person who meditates strives for peace, plunging into a “state of peace,” he finds “emptiness,” that is, he gets rid of all extraneous thoughts, forgetting about everything around him and not feeling himself.

Extraneous thoughts, according to Chinese medicine, give rise to “seven feelings (emotions)”: joy, anger, sadness, thoughtfulness, grief, fear, anxiety. Violent emotions or, conversely, their complete suppression harm the “five dense organs” and are the root cause of various diseases. Excessive anger affects the liver, joy affects the heart, sadness affects the spleen, grief affects the lungs, and fear affects the kidneys. So, meditation is the first secret of longevity of Shaolin monks.

2. Combination of orthodox Buddhism with martial arts training

It is well known that in monasteries there are strict rules, according to which a person taking monastic vows must be merciful, do good deeds, and must not raise a hand against a person. Therefore, monks are prohibited from practicing martial arts. Shaolin took a different path. From the first day of its foundation, tall and strong monks demonstrated their skills in the field fist fight, since the practice of life, development and spread of Buddhism required knowledge of martial arts, and only healthy and strong monks were able to keep their monastery intact. This is the second secret of longevity.

3. Knowledge of medicine

Martial arts training was accompanied by a large number of injuries. Therefore, the abbots of the monastery, willy-nilly, had to engage in medical practice, develop their own recipes and methods of treatment. Starting from the era of the Sui dynasties, the monastery began to send representatives to the mountains to famous healers to study the intricacies of medicine, especially healing wounds. Their number was constantly increasing. Monastic doctors began to engage in therapy and gradually formed a full-fledged hospital at the monastery. In order to improve the effectiveness of providing assistance to victims, the abbots required that every Wushu practitioner have the necessary medical knowledge in four areas: the causes of diseases, treatment, prevention and medicines. Possessing knowledge of medicine, the monks studied the issues of longevity and developed methods for prolonging life. Thus, the medical secrets received by the monks from their mentors contributed to the development of the principles of longevity. This is the third secret of longevity of Shaolin monks.

SHAOLIN METHOD OF LIFE EXTENSION

Above we focused on three features of the Shaolin method of life extension. However, this method has much in common with the methods of “nurturing life” of other schools and directions. Known for his research into methods of “nurturing” and prolonging life, the monk Xuan Gui in his writings outlined the main directions of the Shaolin school, the essence of which boils down to the following:

• “nurturing life” through meditation;
• sunbathing;
• hardening by cold, heat and wind;
• healing the spleen with proper nutrition;
• cold water baths;
• prolonging life with the help of qigong;
• losing weight by walking;
• strengthening the body with “hard” exercises;
• prolongation of life with the help of medical secrets;
• cleansing the body with massage;
• healing with the help of wushu.

These directions constitute complex method“nurturing” and prolonging life, incorporating the long practice of Shaolin, the invaluable experience of other schools, a method that has proven its effectiveness in preventing diseases and promoting health.

Principles of nutrition

Basic food

Chinese traditional medicine has long noticed the close connection between nutrition and human health. The treatise "Lingshu" says: “The top heater turns on and lets in five flavors of cereal. Qi is what gilds the skin, strengthens the body, nourishes the hair, and irrigates like fog and dew. With the intake of food, the body is filled with qi. Getting into the bones, it has a beneficial effect on them, making them flexible. Saliva is a fluid that nourishes the brain and moisturizes the skin. The qi enters the middle heater, combines with the liquid and turns red. It turns out to be blood."

This excerpt from an ancient treatise demonstrates the important role food plays in the functioning of the human body, which, when entering it, contribute to the formation of the nutritional substances necessary for a person - qi, blood and saliva. These nutritional substances support normal metabolism, continuously circulating, ensuring the vital functions of the body.

Digestion of food is carried out mainly by the stomach and spleen. Therefore, the ancients said: “The spleen is the basis of post-uterine life, the source that generates qi and blood.”

The monk doctor of the Ming era, Beng Yue, combining the principles of traditional Chinese medicine with his own experience, created his original approach to the issue of “nurturing life”, developed the daily diet of monks and nutrition during illness.

Ben Yue wrote: “The basis of nutrition is the five grains, vegetables and fruits. Medicinal herbs should be taken with food year-round. Nutrition should be orderly. Eating at the same time will allow you to live a hundred years.”

He believed that nutrition should be regular, varied, food should be fresh, that food should be taken at a certain time and in certain quantities, that one should not consume large amounts of liquid, overeat or undereat.

In Shaolin there are strict rules according to which food is taken three times a day. Every monk is obliged to strictly follow these rules.

It is forbidden to eat anything after the third meal. Breakfast at the monastery starts at six in the morning and includes two cups of thin porridge. Lunch happens at half past twelve and consists of steamed pampushka or flatbread and liquid soup in unlimited quantities, at six in the evening - dinner, including one or one and a half cups of hodgepodge with noodles. Breakfast should not be heavy, at lunch you need to eat as much as you should, and at dinner - a little less. Food should be varied. Monks are forbidden to eat meat and drink wine. Violators are punished with burning sticks and expelled from the monastery.

Meal schedule

BREAKFAST
Time: 6 hours.
Main food: porridge made from chumiza or corn with the addition of sweet potatoes or potatoes.
Quantity: 2 - 2.5 cups (100 g of rice or flour).

DINNER
Time: 11 o'clock.
Main food: Flatbread made from a mixture of wheat and corn flour and filled with dates or persimmons.
Quantity: 1 flatbread (250g), plus white radish, doufu (bean curd), golden bean noodles.

DINNER
Time: 6 pm. Main food: bean flour noodles.
Quantity: 1 - 1.5 cups with seasonal additions: alfalfa, celery, Chinese cabbage, etc.

Tea ration

Shaolin monks regularly drink medicinal tea, brewing it from herbs depending on weather conditions associated with the changing seasons. Drinking this tea helps to improve the stomach, lift the “spirit” and prolong life.

Spring tea : 30 g of field mint, 30 g of reed rhizome, 10 g of licorice, 30 g of Laurera's gentian, brew with boiling water and drink instead of tea 4 - 5 times a day, one glass, brewing a new portion every day. This infusion has an anti-infective and detoxifying effect, and is a good prophylactic against skin diseases, such as furunculosis.

Summer tea : 18 g of platycodon grandiflora, 10 g of licorice, 30 g of Japanese honeysuckle, brew with boiling water and drink instead of tea. This infusion has a detoxifying effect, relieves fever, is good for the throat, and is a good prophylactic against the flu. In the summer, you can also drink small quantities of fresh golden bean juice, obtained by squeezing the beans brewed with boiling water and crushed with added sugar.

Autumn tea : 20 g of hanging forcisia, 10 g of bamboo leaves, 10 g of licorice, 3 g of dandelion, 10 g of foxglove root, brew with boiling water and drink instead of tea. This infusion promotes the formation of saliva and has detoxifying, antipyretic, diuretic and carminative properties.

Winter tea : 3 g raw ginger, 3 dates, 30 g black tea leaves, 3 onion stalks, boil and drink instead of tea. This decoction helps improve the functions of the intestines and spleen.

Longevity tea for any time of year: 30 g polygonum multiflorum, 30 g Chinese chamomile, 35 g hawthorn, 250 g thick honey. Boil the first four ingredients in a clay pot for 40 minutes, drain the broth, and squeeze the juice out of the resulting solid mass. Pour water into the pot, transfer the pomace and boil, drain the broth. Repeat the procedure 3 times. Drain all the decoctions together (you should get 500 ml). Add honey and stir until smooth. Place the resulting product in a porcelain vessel and seal tightly. Take 1 tablespoon daily after meals, diluted in half a glass of boiled water. This drink can be consumed all year round. It helps replenish qi, nourish the blood, improve the functions of the stomach and spleen.

Wild plants in the monks' diet

• Lemon yellow daylily, or common dandelion. It is collected in the spring when it blooms. Dig out whole, wash and cut into small pieces. Then add salt and knead slightly. It can be added to other dishes. Daylily helps eliminate heat and has a detoxifying effect. As the monks say, eating this plant for one month relieves skin abscesses and furunculosis for a whole year.
• Shepherd's Purse. In spring, this plant covers large areas around the monastery. Fresh young leaves are eaten. They can be added directly to noodle soup, or they can be eaten by brewing them with boiling water, adding salt, vinegar and a small amount of sesame oil. Shepherd's purse is very nutritious and pleasant to the taste. It helps replenish blood and improve the health of the spleen. With long-term use, it eliminates yellowness of the face, relieves thinness, weakness in the limbs, dizziness and blurred vision.
• Field mint. It grows in abundance near the monastery, filling the air with a pleasant aroma. In spring and summer, monks collect its stems and leaves, wash it, cut it into pieces, salt it and lightly knead it. Eating mint helps improve vision, clear the head, and eliminate fever.
• Purslane . Purslane is collected in summer and autumn. It is dug up entirely, washed and doused with boiling water. Eat with salt and oil. Pancakes are also made from it with the addition of flour and donuts. Purslane strengthens the stomach, normalizes intestinal function, and is recommended for indigestion and dysentery.
• Wormwood hairy. Young shoots of wormwood are collected in early spring, washed, mixed with salt and flour and steamed. Wormwood helps eliminate heat.
• Willow. In early spring, young shoots of willow are collected, boiled in boiling water, removed and eaten, adding salt and oil. Young willow shoots can also be mixed with flour and steamed.
• Japanese thistle. Young thistle leaves are collected, washed and eaten raw with salt and butter or boiled in noodle soup. Thistle has a hemostatic effect.
• Chinese yam. This plant helps to “replenish” the kidneys, stops bleeding, strengthens the spleen and lungs. The monks collect it in late autumn and eat it boiled.
• Tarot. It is dug up in early spring and late autumn and boiled with white radish. Taro helps to “replenish” the kidneys and blood.
• Hawthorn. Hawthorn fruits are collected at the end of autumn, washed, boiled and pureed. Hawthorn puree has a sour taste, is rich in vitamins, strengthens the stomach and improves digestion.
• Chestnut. Monks collect and eat boiled chestnuts in the fall. They taste sweet, strengthen the stomach and replenish the spleen.
• Gingo. This plant normalizes breathing, strengthens the lungs and kidneys. It is collected 3 - 5 pieces per day, peeled and boiled with crushed sugar. Both fruits and decoction are used as food.

Vitamins and longevity

From the point of view of modern dietetics, the foods consumed by Shaolin monks can be divided into cereals, root vegetables, legumes and nuts, fruits and vegetables.

Cereals are one of the main products constantly consumed by humans. They are rich in carbohydrates, which contribute to the body's production of thermal energy, as well as protein. Cereals are eaten mixed or together with legumes, which allows them to complement each other and to some extent compensate for the lack of amino acids in them. The amount of protein in cereals is approximately the same; they are an important source for the human body. Cereals also contain a large amount of vitamins, calcium, iron, and coarse fiber.

Root vegetables supply the human body with thermal energy and contain many vitamins and minerals.

Legumes and nuts contain high amounts of protein and fat, especially soy. Their protein content is higher than that of vegetables and grains. They are rich in unsaturated fatty acids, phosphatides, amino acids, vitamins and minerals.

Vegetables and fruits are rich in microelements necessary for the human body. Leafy vegetables, for example, contain many B vitamins and carotene, as well as calcium, iron and inorganic salts. In addition, the moisture and fiber they contain promote digestion (see table).

Shaolin monks eat a variety of grains, mainly processed grains, as well as beans, vegetables and nuts. They set their diet depending on the time of year and their own condition, which allows them to receive a full range of nutrients that combine well with each other. This is the main way to maintain health and longevity. It is especially important that the monks abstain from meat.

DeEn /magazine "Qigong and Sports", No. 2 1995/