EuroMaidan protesters will eat traditional 12 dishes for dinner on Orthodox Christmas Eve, which is celebrated on Dec. 6. The dinner is supposed to end a long fast before Christmas, and is meat-free.
It is typically served as the first star appears in the sky, in a reference to the Christmas Star, which revealed the birth of Jesus to the Magi, and later led them to Bethlehem, where the savior of the humanity was born, according to the Bible.
On Maidan, the Christmas dinner will be served from 5 p.m.
The menu for the protesters was presented by commandants of the protesters, while dishes are prepared in the makeshift kitchens located in the Trade Union House.
The kitchens were set up
after protesters took over the Trade Union building and turned it
into Headquarters of National Resistance on Dec. 1. Thousands of
volunteers have worked in the kitchens since then to prepare food and
hot drinks for the protesters. The record-breaking number of portions
– 110,000 – was cooked on Dec. 8, according to Stepan Kubiv, one of
the commandants of the Headquarters.
For Christmas Eve, the
volunteer chefs will make three types of traditional porridge, called
kutya. Typically, its made out of whole grains with honey,
nuts and raisins, but hundreds of recipes exist.
“One of the types of
kutya, with boiled fruit, honey and poppy seeds, was made to the
recipe of hungry years, when there was no wheat and people had to use
whatever they had a good crop of – apples and pears, for example,”
Kubiv said.
Another commandant, Serhiy Averchenko,
said that those who will be eating patties with fillings should watch
out for large beans. Traditionally, those family members who got
beans in their food were considered lucky and especially blessed for
the year.
Averchenko said that the
five protesters who find beans will be blessed with special presents
from Maidan, including Christmas Tree decorations and decorated
orange helmets that have become one of the hallmarks of EuroMaidan.
Christmas
Eve Menu from EuroMaidan
Rice
kutya with honey and poppy seeds
Wheat
kutya with honey and buts
Kutya
with boiled fruit, honey and poppy seeds
Dumplings
with jam, poppy seeds and raisins
Patties
with potatoes, patties with rice
Meat-free
borscht
Vegetable
stew with mushrooms
Stewed
cabbage with peas
Mushroom
soup, Carpathian-style
Vinaigrette,
a traditional salad of winter vegetables with crab sticks
Ukrainian-style
buns
Uzvar, a drink of boiled dried fruit
