Advent and Burbara herald Christmas

The countdown to Christmas began with the November 27 start of Advent, followed by Eid al-Burbara, or St. Barbara’s Day, on December 4.

 

Many shops and high streets have been in full swing since October though. When living in London, such early start removed all the magic from the season when everything in town went into Christmas mode three months ahead of time.

Santa or Mrs. (Mich) Claus?

December used to be a month I wished I could sleep through to reemerge on January 7. Not only was it the “silly season” of Inebriation and useless spending, but also the time of dark days, when lights had to be switched on as of 2 p.m., and of inclement weather, when you only wanted to hole up.

Luckily in Dubai, the season of spending and gluttony and intoxication is made bearable thanks to the sun and the heat. You can get away with Christmas lunch and then go back to work.

But there are some events in the buildup to Christmas that remain fond memories, such as preparing the Advent calendar and Burbara.

Advent, from the Latin word adventus meaning coming in Latin, is observed in many Christian churches as a time of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus at Christmas. It is the beginning of the Western liturgical year and commences on the fourth Sunday before December 25, which fell on November 27 this year.

The progression of the season is marked, mostly by children, with an Advent calendar. We used to make these at school and take them home just in time to start opening the little windows and see the holy image and story leading up to the Nativity. 

"The Little Town" Advent Calendar first published in 1946

The origin of the Advent Calendar can be traced back to the 19th century, when religious families made a chalk line for every day in December until Christmas Eve. The first known Advent Calendar was handmade in 1851. The first printed ones were made in 1908 by a Swabian parishioner son, Gerhard Lang (1881-1974). He produced little colored pictures that could be affixed on a cardboard each December day.

The Advent Calendar’s popularity started to spread worldwide, but World War II terminated the success of this German tradition. The cardboard was rationed and it was forbidden to produce calendars with pictures. 

Advent Calendar 44 by Richard Sellmer

The first printed calendars after the war were by Richard Sellmer of Stuttgart in 1946. He resurrected the commercial Advent Calendar and is responsible for its widespread popularity. His company, Richard Sellmer Verlag, today maintains a stock of over 1,000,000 calendars worldwide. Advent Calendars filled with chocolate were already available in 1958.

The second fond memory I have leading up to Christmas is of Eid al-Burbara, or Saint Barbara's Day. It is celebrated on December 4 in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Palestine to honor Saint Barbara, who disguised herself in many different characters to elude the Romans who were persecuting her. Thus children wear masks and go around the neighborhood, much as in Halloween, and are offered a porridge-like delicacy called Burbara.

Burbara awakens all the senses with the smell of spices and smooth hot texture. It is made of boiled wheat grains, pomegranate seeds, raisins, anise and sugar and is offered to the children. It gives off a wonderful warm smell that I still remember.

Eid al-Burbara signals the countdown to Christmas. And although Advent is a period of fasting, Burbara is something that can be eaten during this lent period because it doesn’t include dairy or meat products.

The Eid al-Burbara story tells how Barbara supposedly ran through a freshly planted wheat field, which grew instantly to magically cover her path. 

St. Barbara (Wikipedia)

Accounts place St. Barbara in the 3rd century. As one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, she continues to be recognized as the patron saint of artillerymen, military engineers, miners and others who work with explosives because of her old legend's association with lightning. Many of the 13 miracles in a 15th-century French version of her story hinges on the security she offered her devotees, who would not die without making confession and receiving extreme unction.

Various versions differ on the location of St. Barbara’s martyrdom, which is given as Tuscany, Rome, Antioch, Baalbek, and Nicomedia.

According to tradition, Barbara was the daughter of the pagan Dioscurus. On discovering that she became a Christian, her father tried to kill her, but she was miraculously transported out of his reach. Dioscurus denounced her to the authorities. Despite being tortured, she refused to denounce her faith. Her father beheaded her and was immediately struck by lightning and reduced to ashes. As a result of her father's fate, St. Barbara's prayers are especially sought as protection against thunderstorms and fire. 

If you would like to try your hand at Burbara, I found my Mom, Vicky’s recipe. We used to make a lot to share with all the neighbors, so I have cut the ingredients to make a large bowl or six-eight generous servings.

Burbara (photo)

Ingredients:

• 250g crushed peeled or shelled wheat
• 250g dried apricots
• 250g raisins
• 1 teaspoon of ground nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon of cloves
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 2 teaspoons fennel seeds, ground
• 2 teaspoons anise seeds, ground
• 10 tablespoons sugar (or to taste)
• 100g crushed walnuts
• 100g almonds (peeled, halved, soaked in hot water)
• 1 pomegranate, seeded

Cooking:

• Wash wheat and soak overnight. Drain, place in a pot and cover it with cold water just above the wheat. Bring to a boil until the wheat is tender. Drain the wheat and boil again in clean water.
• When it boils, reduce the heat and add the spices -- cinnamon, fennel, anise and sugar.
• Wash raisins, dice apricots and add to the boiling mix. Boil for another 10 minutes or until the wheat and raisins puff up.
• Serve hot with almonds and crushed walnuts and pomegranate seeds on top.

There’s still time to make your own Advent Calendar, if you don’t have one already. And once you’ve tried Burbara, the countdown to Christmas Day is truly on.

Related posts:

Lebanese and Halloween by Elie Fares – October 31, 2011

Chicken, lost in curry...

I haven’t had a recipe post for some time. That’s because I don’t cook at home. With a kitchen equipped with little more than a fridge and a microwave, the recipes I share are ones I grasp either when visiting a friend at the right time and helping prepare something or when I’m given the run of her kitchen.

This was the case a couple of days ago when I popped over just in time to prepare a Chicken Curry Salad.

I’m not keen on chicken. In fact, I try to avoid it. The only exception I occasionally make is for plain boiled chicken breasts -- no sauces, no fuss. But the combination of chicken and curry is yummy.

I am, ashamedly, a big fan of plain food. This maybe dates back to when I used to have lunch at school. I loved the rice, watery soups, spaghetti and especially the couscous we were served at the St. Joseph Convent in Tunis. So much so, that I used to ask for some to take home, to the delight of the nuns.

And during the many months we spent in hospitals with my mum, Vicky, the nurses were always amazed at how I would finish whatever was left on her meal tray.

This Chicken Curry Salad is practical to take to work for lunch in a Tupperware. It’s delicious as a side dish -- with my cabbage and beetroot salad (see “My favorite salad,” 31 August 2010) -- and goes well with potatoes (see “Potatoes, potatos...” of 8 November 2010). So here’s another chicken curry recipe to add to the 9,970,000 others on Google!!!

      Ingredients (serves 4)

• 2 chicken breasts 
• 2 or 3 spring onions, or shallots, chopped 
• 3 tablespoons mayonnaise (I used Lesieur mayonnaise with sunflower oil) 
• 3 tablespoons yogurt (Al-Ain fresh, full cream) 
• 2 tablespoons curry paste (Rajah mild curry paste) 
• 2 teaspoons mango chutney (Sharwood’s smooth mango chutney) 
• Black pepper 
• Salt (I don’t use salt) 
• 3 tablespoons of raisins

      

      Preparation

• Boil the chicken breasts with a small onion pricked with cloves and a bay leaf 
• While waiting for the chicken to cool down, mix the ingredients in a bowl 
• Cut up the chicken breasts, by hand, into mouthful pieces 
• Combine with the sauce 
• Sprinkle with black pepper

Bon appétit!

Potatoes, potatos...

I don't know why I find this simple dish so yummy. It's cubed new potatoes or spuds, with either feta or white cheese, cooked in the oven. Maybe it's because it has my favorite ingredients: potatoes and cheese.

It looks great as soon as it comes out of the oven and, once served, I savor every mouthful. I often overindulge when it is on offer as my subconscious stops me counting the helpings.

This isn't a cookbook recipe -- it is just a meal course I watched, and gradually helped, a friend prepare. It goes well with my cabbage and beetroot salad (see My favorite salad, August 31) as a main course.

Ingredients (serves 6)

• 1 kg of new potatoes or any of your choice, as long as they are small, starchy and don't need peeling
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Juice and zest of half a lemon
• 125 g feta cheese or white cheese, broken into chunks.I like it best with Pinar's Traditional White Cheese that comes in tubs
• A couple of springs of fresh basil (you should always have a pot of basil in the kitchen)

Preparation

• Put the unpeeled baby potatoes into a large pan of water with a pinch of slat, bring to the boil and cook for about 20 minutes, until they are just slightly underdone
• Drain the potatoes then tip them into a pyrex dish you can serve them in
• Cut each of the potatoes into four or five pieces
• Sprinkle them with the chunks of feta or white cheese, the lemon juice and zest, the basil leaves and extra virgin olive oil. Gently, but thoroughly combine all the ingredients
• Sprinkle some black pepper, extra virgin olive oil and a few more basil leaves on the top before putting the pyrex in the oven

Preheat the oven at 190 degrees C, 375 degrees F, Gas 5

Bake for 30 minutes, until the potatoes are beginning to turn golden and crisp around the edges.

I was so eager to start eating the last time we had this for lunch that when it came out of the oven I forgot to take a picture! Sorry ...

Bon appétit. If you try it, let me know what you think.

And by the way, I'm off to Beirut on Tuesday (November 9), so hopefully my next posts will be about what I'm doing there.

Halloween is near

Halloween is in 11 days time and it's not too early to start preparing those pranks and costumes, stocking up on treats and planning about an a propos dinner.

I never really got into the Halloween trick-or-treating and I'm not a fan of horror movies. But there are a few things I do associate with Halloween – namely: "Roseanne," eggs and pumpkins.

Halloween, observed on October 31, is an annual holiday in certain countries and has roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain (celebrating the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darker half") and the Christian holiday All Saints' Day, but is now chiefly a secular celebration.

If you are too lazy to read about it on Wikipedia, common Halloween activities include trick-or-treating, wearing costumes and attending costume parties, carving jack-o'-lanterns, ghost tours, bonfires, apple bogging, visiting haunted attractions, committing pranks, telling ghost stories or other frightening tales and watching horror films. The colors black and orange are associated with the celebrations because of the darkness of night and the color of bonfires, autumn leaves and jack-o'-lanterns.

In traditional Celtic Halloween festivals, large turnips were hollowed out, carved with faces and placed in windows to ward off evil spirits. But the carving of pumpkins is now associated with Halloween because they are both readily available in this season and much larger – making them easier to carve than turnips.

I always associate Halloween with "Roseanne," the TV show. Starring Roseanne Bar, it ran from 1988 to 1997 and was one of the most watched in the U.S. from 1989-1990. It portrays a blue-collar American family: Roseanne, her husband Dan Connor (John Goodman), their children (Becky, Darlene, DJ and Jerry Garcia), her sister Jackie, her mother Bev and quite a few other relatives, friends and neighbors.

Among the memorable highlights of "Roseanne," are its Halloween episodes. Roseanne and Dan met at a Halloween dance and no expense is spared by the couple in making and playing practical jokes on family, friends and neighbors. In later series, more efforts were made by people to get their own back on Roseanne, including one episode I remember well of the children putting snakes in Roseanne's bed.

I'm not a TV buff, and only watch it for sports, but it was a show that tackled many taboo subjects that other shows at the time avoided, such as poverty, alcoholism, drug abuse, birth control, obesity and abortion. It also was significant for its portrayal of feminist ideals, including a female-dominated household.

Halloween also justifies my dislike of eggs. A lot of trick-or-treating goes on in London, and I was always apprehensive when the doorbell rang on that night. Also, I rarely had treats to give away and usually forgot to stock up. One year, when I had moved to a new flat in Wimbledon, the building entrance door must have been left open and my door bell did indeed ring. I looked out of the eye-hole and there was a group of children trick-or-treating. I open the door and told them I only had 90% cocoa chocolate! They took it grudgingly. I went out moments later to throw the garbage and was taken aback. The entire corridor on my floor and the rest of the building's corridors had been splashed with eggs. A neighbor and I spent hours cleaning up the mess.

A variety of pumpkins (photo by Octavia Nasr)

But on a more appetizing note, there are many foods associated with Halloween: candy apple, candy pumpkins, candy corn, caramelized apples, pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, roasted sweet corn... I am a great  fan of pumpkin. We often cooked it at home, mostly "pumpkin au gratin" (in white sauce and covered with grated cheese, cooked in the oven). Another favorite, which I had recently at friends’ place, is pumpkin soup.

I love soup. Maybe it's a habit I picked up from the days I lunched at school. The meal always started with soup. Thinking back, it was mostly colored water, but found it delicious, much to the nuns' delight. I would occasionally ask them if I could take some home for my dad. It's such a satisfying and comfort treat in cold or clement weather. But I rarely have soup now, given the heat in Dubai.

If you're a pumpkin enthusiast and are short of ideas for a Halloween dinner, try this pumpkin soup:

Pumpkin Soup

Ingredients (serves four)

¼ cup oil or butter

1 medium size onion minced or cut very fine

4 leeks (white part) minced or cut very fine

4 cups raw pumpkin

4 cups chicken broth (or 2 cubes)

½ cup milk

2 tablespoons butter

Salt (none if you use chicken cubes) and pepper to taste

Croutons for garnish

Roasted pumpkin seeds for garnish

To Prepare:

Heat oil or butter in a large pot

Add onion and leaks

Cook until onion is transparent

Add pumpkin, chicken broth and cook until pumpkin is tender (30-45 minutes)

Process in food blender -- or move to a bowl and process with hand held blender -- a little at a time

Return to pot and add milk, butter, salt and pepper. If still very thick, add some hot water

Heat without bringing to a boil

Garnish with croutons and pumpkin seeds (optional)

Bon appétit and Happy Halloween!