Who’s the monk on Mount Athos, whose recipes have been included within the menu of among the costliest eating places on the earth?
The elder Epifanios handed away prematurely on the age of 64, as a result of COVID-19 pandemic. Nonetheless, his legacy was launched through the quarantine.
At a time when the return to the elemental, the necessity to eliminate the pointless, the seek for a misplaced spirituality, but additionally the more and more widespread alternative of excluding meat is recognized with the entire philosophy of Epifanios himself.
“We prepare dinner with love for our neighbor. We eat with restraint. As a lot because it ought to. No meat all yr spherical, plenty of herbs and fruits. We strictly observe fasting. It’s a easy, nutritious diet, with out fats,” he stated.
The well-known chef Jamie Oliver, only a week in the past, throughout his present, remembered the person, their conferences in his cell and the way it affected him.
The British chef Gordon Ramsey, in an interview with “Radio Occasions” just a few days in the past, speaking concerning the impact of the pandemic on the restaurant, revealed that he has one among Epifanios’ books.
One of many most interesting eating places in Paris, Pierre Gagnaire, lately included a dish impressed by a monk’s recipe.
Easy, humble, with pure reasonably priced components, delicate style and vegetarian tendency. These are the traits of monastic delicacies that’s often restricted to monasteries and to not luxurious Michelin eating places.
A monk on Mount Athos, nevertheless, took care to alter that.
Watch the video: Mount Athos cooking with the elder Epifanio | Oregano meatballs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi7FC2ZdlwY
Elder Epifanio spent his life cooking for the skin world, typically touring overseas, to conferences, exhibitions and meals and beverage competitions. His culinary artwork was the perfect combination of Mediterranean eating regimen and Mount Athos custom, with 5 or 6 components, nearly by no means together with meat.
He was additionally against its substitutes, resembling utilizing soy as a substitute of minced meat. His recognition had reached such some extent that he participated in world conferences.
There he offered the cooking of Mount Athos to 1,600 prime cooks from all over the world.
The truth is, among the best personalities had visited him in his cell on Mount Athos, collaborating, at his urging, within the cooking course of and having fun with his well-known dishes.
Regardless of his latest demise, his legacy unfold, particularly through the previous two years, mediating the pandemic at breakneck pace.
His easy however imaginative cooking, the perspective of life and the spirituality that accompanied it, most likely appeared like medication within the dystopian and unprecedented scenario of the pandemic.
Thus, the elder Epifanio turned a logo of the brand new pattern in vitamin, which is summed up in “acutely aware consuming” – What transforms man’s relationship with the surroundings, animals, himself and others.
Epifaios’ cooking has reached the award-winning three Michelin restaurant in New York “Berdardin”, which incorporates his well-known recipe. Jamie Oliver additionally cites him as his supply and the Telegraph completely cherished his meals.
The winery of Mount Athos
Epifanios got here from a easy, rural and virtuous household from Nikisiani in Kavala. He was the one one of many 5 brothers who adopted his mom to the kitchen, serving to her and watching over her.
He minimize potatoes, peeled greens and sucked each housewife’s secret.
As quickly as he turned 18, he turned a monk on Mount Athos within the Monastery of Agios Pavlos. After 18 complete years of his keep there, he settled within the Seat of Agios Efstathios, chosen as “Mylopotamos”, a part of the Monastery of Agia Lavra.
Watch the video: Opson and Psalm – Large Beans – Stuffed Oily Peppers – Leek Soup | ERT
The oldest monastery of Mount Athos was based in 974 by Saint Athanasios the Athonite, founding father of Mount Athos and confessor of the emperor Nikiphoros Phocas. In his will, actually, he had determined to determine the winery of Mount Athos there.
There have been two important the explanation why the monks hooked up significance to the winery. The primary is that wine is taken into account a meals, identical to oil and olives. The second is that nama is produced from wine, that’s, the wine of the Holy Communion.
Such a winery, due to this fact, needed to exist on Mount Athos, in addition to in lots of monasteries.
When Epifanios went to Kathisma, the Winery was in ruins, deserted. He rolled up his sleeves, decided to regenerate it and after exhausting work turned the winery right into a jewel.
The second factor he did was to plant vines, because the earlier ones didn’t produce something. He began the manufacturing in 1995. That’s, 5 years after he settled there.
That yr was the primary manufacturing.
It was marked, actually, by a revolutionary act. Epifanios bottled the wine. He created elegant bottles, which had been labeled Mylopotamos. This provoked quite a lot of reactions, as Mount Athos was not accustomed to such practices.
Now, there is no such thing as a monastery and cell that doesn’t have bottled wine. He was a pioneer!
Tasty wonders
On the similar time he handed on his nice love, cooking. It didn’t take lengthy for him to grow to be a chef, having gained a few years of expertise from the older elders of the monastery.
They conveyed to him the significance of utilizing easy and seasonal uncooked supplies. Beans in season, tomatoes in season and so forth. The opposite factor he did was use easy native components and glorious olive oil.
With just a few components, Epiphanius labored wonders. When requested how he did it, he stated that cooking for him was “an expression of affection for his neighbour.”
They keep in mind him ready patiently within the oven, explaining that he desires time and keenness, however jokingly not discovering his secrets and techniques.
His fame unfold in Greece and overseas. From his Seat started to go hundreds of individuals a yr, passers-by and guests for just a few days.
He cooked with all of them. On the urging of lots of his personal folks, he wrote his cookbook with Mount Athos recipes. Till then there have been solely scattered recipes.
Watch the video: Opson and Psalm Mushrooms, fried anchovies, octopus meatballs, garlic beets, baked eggplants
A number of monks within the “Gerontika” (the custom books of Mount Athos and never spiritual) described the meals that should be cooked on a regular basis, relying on fasting and guidelines.
They didn’t, nevertheless, take the type of recipes. They had been extra like prompts.
Epifanios learn them, collected them, listened to the experiences and recollections of the elders, labored on the recipes within the kitchen of Kathisma, corrected, added, put his personal concepts and thus created his ebook: “The cooking of Mount Athos”.
His ebook was translated into eight languages and there have been countless journeys, appearances and interviews all over the world. Throughout these years he traveled throughout Europe and past. He had already met nearly all of the European leaders who visited Mount Athos.
Both a distinguished individual already knew Epifanios and selected to fulfill him, or they urged the customer, after arriving on Mount Athos, to not miss the chance to spend time with him and luxuriate in his cooking. It had grow to be some extent of reference.
Jamie Oliver used to go every year, Uberto Echo much more typically. European politicians, businessmen, artists and intellectuals visited. Prior to now he had cooked for the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and the Patriarchs of Moscow, Jerusalem and Antioch.
In a makeshift kitchen with gasoline, arrange in Ladadika, Thessaloniki in September 2019, Epifanios ready a fish dinner for about 30 distinguished American friends, together with a gastronomic critic of the New York Occasions.
She had then spoken of a “gastronomic miracle”.
And Russian President Vladimir Putin requested to fulfill him.
A particular go to was that of the then Speaker of the Italian Parliament and chief of the Communist Reconstruction Fausto Bertinotti. The Italian politician is an atheist, however that didn’t cease him from being impressed by Epifanios and spending time with him.
Apart from, the Elder cherished to speak about faith, present affairs, philosophy and naturally cooking. He had humour, kindness and ingenuity that received over the world.
His journeys overseas had been fastidiously deliberate and included a public cooking demonstration, often at a widely known restaurant, in international locations resembling France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany and Spain.
“However I realized from the elders how one can fry the onion over a low warmth, as a result of they stated that the sweeter the onion turns into, the tastier the meals might be,” Epifanios stated to a gathered crowd as soon as.
“I additionally realized that each one meals on the finish of cooking require persistence and braveness, once we anticipate the surplus juices to depart on the coals,” he added.
The octopus soup recipe had left the French cooks of prime eating places speechless who hurried to deify him and borrow it.
“I didn’t go to cooking faculties, nor do I’ve a level,” he stated when requested how he realized a lot about cooking and the cooks “pulled their hair out.”
He answered them in Greek, with one among his greatest buddies translating.
The Epifanios legacy
Epifanios was struck by most cancers. He was glad to have his final desk with the President of the Republic on the eve of October 28. After 40 days he handed away.
His work, nevertheless, remained. His legacy is proving to be extra related than ever, at a time when eating regimen has by no means been as microscopic as it’s as we speak.
By no means earlier than has the connection of individuals with it been re-examined, tailored as it’s as we speak, whereas it’s now inextricably linked as a social and political act with the surroundings and local weather change, with the allocation of restricted assets, but additionally with a extra common bioethics.
It’s no coincidence that the variety of those that undertake veganism is growing exponentially.
Thus, the Mount Athos zucchini meatballs, the casserole with artichokes, soups and the standard Mount Athos semolina halva journey all over the world.
“I prepare dinner the meals that our mother and father and ancestors ready and ate. That is the Mount Athos delicacies, which I realized to prepare dinner for 33 years. Specialists describe it as wholesome, Mediterranean, dietary, vegetarian. I have no idea how one can name it… “.
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