Orthodox Christian monk writes recipe book on meat- and dairy-free Greek monastic diet

Greek Orthodox monks look through a recipe book at the chapel of Mylopotamos, near the monastery of Great Lavra, on Mount Athos in Greece on March 18.

Publish Date: 8/9/2008

Derek Gatopoulos

The Associated Press

MOUNT ATHOS, Greece — In a secluded Orthodox Christian monastery, the phone is ringing again for Father Epifanios Milopotaminos.

Ever since he wrote a cookbook sharing his secrets for feeding his fellow monks, Milopotaminos’ cell phone rings constantly with requests to speak at seminars, appear on television and do cooking demonstrations.

He’s an unlikely candidate for sudden celebrity; in the nearly four decades since he took charge of cooking at the Mount Athos monastery, little about what he does has changed.

“It’s the same way meals were prepared 100 years ago, or 50 years ago,” Father Epifanios says of the meat- and dairy-free diet, much of it cooked over a log fire. “It’s a clean diet that people once ate across the eastern Mediterranean.”

This year he shared that diet, collecting 126 of his recipes in a book that provides a rare glimpse into life in this community of some 1,500 monks in 20 monasteries that strictly limits outside access, including barring women.

And people appear to like what they see.

“People are curious because we use different ingredients and different methods,” he says.
Father Epifanios already has appeared on a popular Greek cooking show, and his publisher, Synchronoi Ozizontes, says the leather-bound cookbook has sold 12,000 copies, a healthy figure for the local market.

Athens nutrition scientist Paraskevas Papachristou says books such as Father Epifanios’ get a great deal of attention because Greeks generally want to eat healthier.

Whether people actually make the recipes is another matter. Papachristou says the interest is at odds with an overall trend away from Mediterranean diets because people cook less and eat more convenience foods.

Published in April, “Cooking on Mount Athos” (so far available only in Greek) offers unpretentious, tasty recipes. Don’t expect arugula with balsamic vinegar. Rather, lots of chickpeas and bitter wild greens.

“Monks at Mount Athos don’t eat meat,” says Father Epifanios. “The word butter is never mentioned in the book, and we don’t add flour to thicken sauces. We just let the ingredients boil down.”

Father Epifanios’ catalog of recipes is divided into seafood — with and without backbones, according to different fasting categories — or vegetables. No desserts on the Holy Mountain.
Slow cooking suits the heavily bearded monks, who rise well before dawn and spend much of their day in prayer.

“We have a lot of time, without families, wives and children to tend to,” Father Epifanios says.
“Everyone has a secondary job. One monk may be a librarian, another may write books, or make wooden carvings, or weave prayer knots, or be an icon painter, an incense maker, a winemaker or a cook,” he says.

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