As soon as Father Youhanna Khawand entered the dining room at the St. Anthony of Qozhaya monastery in Lebanon’s Qadisha Valley, he was surrounded by younger monks reverentially setting his place at the table. The elderly monk had spent 20 years as a hermit in the nearby mountains and had only rejoined the Maronite community a few months earlier. Why did he decide to end his solitude? “Because I missed laughter,” Khawand told writer Jody Eddy. “I missed sharing a meal with my friends.”
A trained chef and prolific cookbook author, Eddy is also a wanderer by nature who spent three years visiting religious communities around the globe. In Elysian Kitchens: Recipes Inspired by the Traditions and Tastes of the World’s Sacred Spaces, she introduces readers to monks, priests, rabbis, nuns and pirs (Sufi spiritual leaders) as she seeks out “the universal truth of food.” These holy communities welcomed her and photographer Kristin Teig into their kitchens and gardens, showcasing their culinary traditions and innovations.
Eddy also takes inspiration from grief: her mother died unexpectedly just as the idea for the book was taking shape, and her grandmother when Eddy was completing the recipes.
While Eddy doesn’t dwell on these losses, there’s a sense of grace and wonder that accompanies her narratives. Elysian Kitchens brings us into the sometimes isolated, sometimes boisterous world of each center through images, stories and recipes.
At the Thikse monastery in the Indian Himalayas, Eddy joined young Tibetan Buddhist devotees, observing the apricot and barley harvests through their eyes and sharing yak butter tea with tsampa (roast-ed barley flour). Further east, the Eihei-ji Temple in Japan’s Fukui Prefecture offered formal Zen dining rituals and simple meals of freshly made tofu. The foraging Benedictine nuns of Kylemore Abbey, bakers of scones lauded as the best in Ireland, introduced Eddy to the sustainability of seaweed, both as food and medicine. She marveled at the medicinal gardens of the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Wandrille in Normandy, France, home to centuries-old traditions of beekeeping and beer brewing. At Saint John’s Abbey, near to Eddy’s Minnesota birthplace, there were Swedish meatballs, riotous Friday night suppers with parsnip and cream cheese pierogies, and more honey. Whether hearty or simple, food is fundamental to each community, Eddy writes, nurturing fellowship and breathing life into ancient practices.
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The Cistercian Catholic monks in Catalonia cultivate their gardens at the Poblet Monastery, a UNESCO World Heritage Site founded in the 12th century. Described in the book as “one of the most cutting- edge monastic gardening programs in the world,” Poblet grows lemon, almond and hazel- nut trees alongside artichokes, quince, olives and persimmons. Eddy recounts the joy of Fra Borja Peyra, a former investment banker turned monk who over- sees the Poblet gardens. “When I need time for contemplation and meditation,” he told her, “I take my little rake outside with me and harvest olives.”
Elysian Kitchens includes two Canadian connections: Ab- baye de Saint-Benoît-du-Lac, a Benedictine Catholic monastery in Quebec’s Eastern Townships beloved for its cheese, jam
and cider; and Zawiya, a Sufi spiritual centre in Fes, Morocco, run by Montreal-born restaurateur Pir Hassan Friedmann, also known as Jonathan. (Raised Jewish, Friedmann was drawn to Sufism as a young man and adopted a Muslim name.)
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Community is a common thread throughout the book, at places like Masbia, New York City’s only kosher soup kitchen, and at Delhi’s Gurudwara Sri Bangla Sahib, an 18th-century Sikh temple where devout volunteers prepare and share chapati and dal makhani, a buttery lentil curry, in the kitchen as big as a football field. While the kosher meals come in crockery and the gurudwara serves its vegetarian fare on stainless steel plates, the message is the same: let all who are hungry eat with us, together.
Through her travels, Eddy created a WhatsApp group for the religious leaders to connect with each other. The group is still active today, sharing their practices for gardening and eating sustainably.
“The monks and priests cooking in temples and monasteries were often the first environmental stewards,” Eddy says in an interview. “They used all parts of the plant….A lot had to do with necessity, but a lot was related to spiritual practices: not wasting and being mindful of consumption.”
The friendships Eddy formed with these spiritual practitioners helped her navigate the world after her losses. “Being able to visit all of these places and talk to so many wise people allowed me to forgive myself and move forward,” she says. “The impor- tance of ritual, of reaching out to community…gave me a sense of continuity and optimism that I’d felt in danger of losing.”
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Ivy Lerner-Frank is a writer and former Canadian diplomat. She lives in Montreal.
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