Christian: cheese and tradition
Easter paskha, the Lenten fast and Cheesefare week, and Christmas cheeses.
The Christian calendar has long set the rhythm of cheese: fasts when dairy was given up, feasts when it returned, and saints whose names are carried by cheeses. Orthodox Christians still keep Cheesefare Week before Great Lent and break the fast at Easter with paskha. Western Europe once gave up dairy for Lent too. Christmas brings Stilton and Vacherin Mont d'Or, and many cheeses bear the names of saints and abbeys.
Lent and Cheesefare
In Eastern Orthodox churches, Great Lent is a fast from meat, dairy and eggs, and on many days from fish, oil and wine. The week before it, Cheesefare Week, called Maslenitsa in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, is a farewell to dairy: blini with butter, sour cream and tvorog, and cheese pies in Greece and the Balkans. Cheesefare Sunday, also called Forgiveness Sunday, ends with a service of mutual forgiveness, and Clean Monday begins the fast.
Easter cheeses
Easter breaks the fast with dairy. Russian and Ukrainian paskha, a moulded sweet of tvorog with butter, sugar and raisins, is blessed in church with the Easter breads. Cypriot flaounes are pastries filled with cheese, eggs, mint and raisins. Naples bakes pastiera, a tart of ricotta and cooked wheat, and Polish families carry cheese, eggs, bread and salt in decorated baskets to be blessed on Holy Saturday, the custom called święconka.
Saints, Christmas and Bandel
Many cheeses honour saints: Saint-Nectaire, Saint-Marcellin, Sainte-Maure, Saint-Félicien and Saint-Paulin among them. In Britain, Stilton is a Christmas staple, and in France and Switzerland, Vacherin Mont d'Or is baked in its box for Christmas. In India, Bandel cheese owes its origin to the Portuguese at Bandel on the Hooghly, where the Basilica of the Holy Rosary, one of the oldest churches in Bengal, still stands beside the river.
Worth knowing
- Paskha: Easter dessert of tvorog
- Flaouna: Cypriot Easter cheese pastry
- Pastiera: Neapolitan Easter tart of ricotta and wheat
- Maslenitsa: Cheesefare Week of blini and tvorog
- Stilton: Christmas blue with port
- Vacherin Mont d'Or: Baked in its box at Christmas
- Saint-Nectaire: Auvergne cheese named for a saint
- Bandel cheese: Born of the Portuguese settlement at Bandel
Sources and further reading
Original text by the EveryCheese desk, written with AI assistance and checked against the sources above. Customs are described as tradition, not as advice. If we have something wrong, tell us.
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