The Holy Supper is an Eastern European Orthodox and Catholic custom ending the 40 days of fasting before Christmas. There are all sorts of variations on it and a rather dry book called Vampires in the Carpathians details manner of them. My mother's family's were fairly simple, straw on the table, extra plates, holy bread, and a quiet meal bu candlelight of 12 foods.  None of them are fancy and all are to some degree fasting. How strictly fasting they were depends on where in the Orthodox Catholic divide your village fell. even inside Orthodoxy, there are many variations among regions and families.

Growing up, our family's Holy Supper normally consisted of wine, nuts, stewed fruits, garlic, honey, bread, pagachi, pirogi, mushroom-barley soup, bobalky, boiled vegetables, and salt.  Twelve dishes on the table and you took a taste of everything. I don't remember ever having fish although many of my family say we did.


Mushroom Barley Soup:
2 pounds white or mixed mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
1 onion
1/2 cup uncooked pearl barley
4 Tbsp butter
4 cups vegetable stock (see here and read down to cleaning the frig - then delete the bones)
 
Sauté the onions and mushrooms in the butter at the bottom of a large pot. When they are soft and aromatic, add the pearl barley and the stock. Simmer about 1 hour while other things cook and then adjust seasoning with salt, pepper, garlic, etc. I normally add some sage and thyme. Serve hot.

Pagach (pagaci)

3/4 cup warm scalded milk
3 Tbsp Crisco or lard
1 Tbsp yeast
1 beaten egg
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
3 cups flour
1 stick butter, melted

Mix milk, yeast, and sugar and let get foamy. Mix together flour, egg, salt, and Crisco and then add the yeast mixture. Knead until elastic (adding flour as needed). Let rise 1 hour until doubled, punch down, and let rest 15 minutes. Divide into four pieces and roll out thin (about 1/4"). Spread about 1 cup fillings on one piece up to 1" from the edge. Lay another piece on top and pinch ends together.  Let rise 1/2 hour.  Bake in a preheated oven at 375 F for 20-30 minutes until brown on top. Brush with melted butter and serve.
To reheat, fry pieces in melted butter until warm.

Apple Filling:

2 Arkansas black apples,
1/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp cinnamon
1/2 stick butter

Slice peeled apples in to thin slices, dry in a dehydrator until rubbery.  Spice with sugar and cinnamon. Add 2 shots Grand Mariner and mix well. Layer in. Cut butter into small pieces and dot on top.

Potato Filling:

2 large potatoes
1 Tbsp butter
4 ounces cheese (cheddar or jack)

Boil and mash potato, adding butter and cheese as it mashes. Season with pepper as desired.

Stewed Fruits:

2 pounds mixed dried fruits
1 Tbsp sugar
1 cup sweet Marsala wine
2 cup water
1/4 cup diced walnuts

Dump the dried fruits into the wine and add the sugar. Mix well. Bring the water to a boil and add the fruit mixture. Reduce to a simmer and cook until the liquid is mostly absorbed. Sprinkle with nuts.

Bobalky

2 cups or so bread dough
1 lb. sauerkraut (drained)
2 tbsp. shortening
1 small chopped onion
1 cup poppyseed
2 tbsp. honey
4 tbsp. water (milk)

Let bread dough raise 1 hour until doubled. Roll out into 1"diameter rope. Cut off 1" thick pieces. Let it rise for 20 minutes. Bake at 350 F for 5 minutes (lightly brown). Pour boiling water over bobalky in colander and drain quickly  so it doesn't get soggy.  Fry onion  and add with sauerkraut to ½  bobalky.  Mix well and serve warm

Mix poppyseed and honey together and add enough hot water to thin. Add to remainder . Mix well and serve.

Pirogi

2 cups flour
2 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup milk
butter
2 Tbsp onion
1/2 tsp garlic

Mix flour, salt, and eggs together in a large bowl and add milk to form a soft dough (just past sticky stage). Knead until elastic. Divide into 2 parts and roll out one part until about 1/8" thick.  Cut into 2 "squares (about 18 of then). Drop a tbsp of filling in the middle of square and fold closed. We use squares for potato; triangles for fruit or cheese. Add separately to a large pot of boiling water and swirl so they don't stick to the bottom. Boil until they float to the top. (You can cool and freeze them now and do the next step after thawing.)

Fry them in butter with the onion and garlic. Serve with melted butter as sauce.

Potato Filling:

2 large potatoes
1 Tbsp butter
4 ounces cheese (cheddar or jack)
Boil and mash potato, adding butter and cheese as it mashes. Season with pepper as desired.

Cheese Filling:

1/2 pound dry cottage cheese (farmer's cheese)
1 beaten egg
1/8 tsp salt
2 Tbsp sugar
vanilla to taste
Combine all in a large bowl and mix until smooth.

Fruit Filling:

1 can raspberry cake filling
Traditionally it's prunes but this is much nicer. We make 1/2 potato, 1/4 cheese and 1/4 this.

The other stuff: Raw garlic and honey is exactly what it sounds like, gloves of fresh garlic with honey to dip them in. I've blogged on bread before and the vegetable can be either anything steamed or raw (the goddess likes a salad). The nuts are traditionally walnuts but we just buy pecans. The salt is the leftover from Pascha. None of this stuff is hard to do and that was the point because today is for services and prayer, and the feasting starts tomorrow after Divine Liturgy. Unlike the Roman Catholic Lemkos, we don't have a midnight service. So the meat pie, from my father's family, gets made tonight and eaten tomorrow.