From Russia with Love

By Hklbrries

Orthodox faithful celebrate Christmas with hearty Old World food.

Alaska's Russian heritage can be glimpsed in surnames like Sherebernikoff, Wassili and Lestenkof, and in dishes like pirog (salmon pie). The Orthodox Church in Alaska has about 10,000 members. In the United States, there are about three million Orthodox, including people of Bulgarian, Ukrainian, Greek, Serbian, Romanian, Russian and Syrian descent. Many Aleuts, Athabascans and other Native Alaskans converted to Orthodoxy after the church was established in 1794 at Kodiak by a small group of monks.

Hearty dishes such as fish pie and barley soup surface most often during the celebration of the Russian Orthodox Christmas, which falls on Jan. 7.

'There's a 12-course Holy Dinner served the evening of Jan. 6 in Alaska and Russia, or Jan. 24 in all the other Orthodox countries,' says Juneau scholar and translator Dick Dauenhauer who specializes in the Tlingit language. 'Each of the 12 courses is for an Apostle. The dinner includes soups, black bread with honey and chunks of raw garlic, kutiya (a barley and honey dish), herring, salmon and kasha (buckwheat groats). Barley-mushroom soup is popular, as is green pea. The main thing is it's vegetarian.'

Sharon Svarny Siverson of Unalaska doesn't particularly think of Russian Christmas as a holiday associated with food: 'Russian Christmas is more of a spiritual thing for us.' However, Siverson does enjoy feeding the parishioners who are 'starring.' In this picturesque tradition, the choir carries large, twirling stars from house to house, singing as they walk. When the stars come around, Siverson makes pirog and piroshkis, which are meat-filled fried bread. She also serves smoked salmon and dry fish. 'When I was a little kid,' she sayd, 'we always had individual tarts with a filling of salmon-berry jelly.'

Recipe in collection associated with this article: Salmonberry Tart.

Ingredients

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Preparation

Step 1

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