BREAD EAT ONCE A YEAR

The culinary highlight of KATHARI DEFTERA is a round, flat bread with sesame seeds on top, called lagana, which is eaten only on this day of the year. This week, everyone has been ordering lagana from bakeries for Monday – there are few people who don’t bake this bread at home.

The bread is usually made from plain white flour, contains olive oil, and is usually unleavened. After shaping the lagana bread, bakers dip their fingertips in olive oil and make indentations in the surface, and sprinkle the bread with sesame seeds. Most Greek bakeries start serving lagana very early in the morning.

Some claim that lagana was made in ancient Greece – it was a flat unleavened bread called laganon. This bread was mentioned by ancient writers, for example, Horace and Aristophanes in the play ” Ecclesiazusae” (“Women of the Assembly”) in 392 BC. Like many ancient traditions in Greece, the making of lagana acquired a Christian meaning. The bread is usually eaten with olives and taramasalata (fish roe mixed with bread, lemon juice, oil), which is either white or brownish in color. Incidentally, lagana bread is usually torn, not cut with a knife.

On this day, they eat a lot of seafood dishes (I marinated octopus). They give up meat and dairy products. And it will be like this until Easter… 

KITE FLYING – A CELEBRATION FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY

What do Greeks usually do on this day? They go on a picnic. They take lagana, tarama, a few other snacks (appetizers are called meze), ouzo or wine and go to the sea, to the mountains or to the park.

On Monday you will see a lot of kites in the sky. This is another tradition of the beginning of Lent. In the past, kites were made by the father or grandfather of the family. In this way, the art of kite making was passed down from generation to generation. Nowadays, most people buy in stores, and this year they ordered online.

What does it mean to fly a kite? A kite symbolizes the human soul, which flies free and pure in the sky to meet the Creator. Believers prepare for the resurrection of Jesus Christ and Orthodox Easter.