Cracking the Myth of the Russian Monastery Kitchen

In Russia today there is a belief that the food served in Russian Orthodox monasteries is the apotheosis of Russian cooking. Some people insist that the monasteries preserved the very best that had survived from ancient Russian cuisine — beautifully prepared, delicious, healthy food.
But isn’t there a contradiction here?
On the one hand, Christianity in general and Orthodoxy in particular preach modesty and the renunciation of worldly pleasures, including gluttony. And on the other hand, we see quite appetizing and sometime even rather rich dishes in monastery cuisine. So which is it?
In fact, supposedly “heavenly” Orthodox cuisine is nothing but a myth. Throughout history, monasteries were filled with people who came from all walks of life. We do not mean only the poor, but people from truly all walks of life — peasants, bourgeoisie, nobles. That is, people who been raised on Russian food. They brought it to the monastery.
It is unlikely that there were many good cooks among them for the simplest reason. According to the statistics of the 1890s, there were a total of 684 monasteries in Russia (484 male and 200 female), 6,813 monks and 5,769 nuns. That is, roughly speaking, an average of 18 people per monastery. How would you find an especially good chef among them? Whichever monk knew how to make porridge was sent to the kitchens.
Of course, there were also “ceremonial” monasteries often visited by tsars and tsarinas. And some unlucky royal wives, such as Ivan the Terrible’s wife Anna or Peter the Great’s wife Yevdokia, unwittingly found themselves as nuns, exiled to convents by their spouses. Those convents had excellent kitchens. An excerpt from the description of a meal at Suzdal’s Pokrovsky Monastery in the 17th century includes meals of “sterlet on a spit, pike perch soup, sterlet pies, white sturgeon…” In part, this was because the tsar and his retinue had to be properly received and fed when they visited. In part, the noble nuns were also in no hurry to abandon their culinary habits.
In all other monasteries, the nuns and monks cooked for themselves. Today sometimes professional cooks are invited to work in popular monasteries to serve pilgrims and the huge number of people who visit the monastery.
But let’s not get carried away. Even in those popular monasteries everyday food is just everyday food. It’s a delusion to think these are places that produce culinary masterpieces. All the food is simple and inexpensive: vegetables, bread, milk and fish. The only food “on the outside” you won’t find there are pelmeni (dumplings) or hotdogs — but that’s only because they are made with — or at least supposedly made with — meat.
Historically, the monks always cooked for themselves. And they cooked the dishes they knew and loved. These were the same dishes that they were used to before they became monks. Monastic cuisine in this sense is not elegant — it’s simple, folk cuisine. The only exceptions are when hierarchs (bishops) come for a solemn feast day service. Then they prepare a richer meal.
So how can we explain today’s stereotype that monastery cuisine is the best example of Russian cuisine? There are two factors at play.
On the one hand, Russians cherish the feeling that in the past food used to be tastier, the water cleaner, and the trees taller. This is nothing new. Two hundred years ago author Mikhail Lermontov wrote, “If only people were like those men of lore, so different from today’s brood.” This yearning for the blessed past appears in Russians at the first mention of monastery cuisine. The monasteries happily exploit this, although sometimes their attempts fail. For example, they serve tomatoes at the so-called “historical monastic table.” Tomatoes were, in fact, almost completely unknown to our ancestors even in the middle of the 19th century.
There is, however, another reason. Since the Soviet period, there is almost no traditional monastery cooking left. But in pre-revolutionary reality, monasteries were indeed one of the centers that preserved traditions and habits, including culinary traditions. And even at the beginning of the 20th century you could still easily find ancient dishes at monasteries: a cold soup called botvinya made of kvass and fish, kulebyaka (a pie with several fillings), dumplings, cabbage pies, and so on. That is, monastery cuisine has always been somewhat more conservative than everyday secular cuisine. Today, for many people, it is something of a “food museum.” 
But do our contemporaries find it more appetizing? Well, to each his own. What people find delicious and healthy food are different in each century.
We like to prepare some dishes from that ancient menu. We aren’t, however, terribly concerned if they follow the strict, mostly vegetarian monastery rules. The main thing is that they taste good — like this pie filled with cabbage and eggs. By the way, it is not made with a traditional yeast dough. It is a different interpretation of our ancestor’s recipe for the modern kitchen.
Ingredients
For the dough
For the filling 
Instructions
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