Clean Monday (aka Ash Monday) is a quite an annual food event in the Greek calendar; no meat is cooked on this day as it's the beginning of Lent among Orthodox Christians. This is also a day where copius amounts of shellfish is consumed and need I say more about Ouzo???
For the next 40 days/7wks, the devout abstain from meat and dairy products (or anything that derives from animals with red blood; no milk, cheese, eggs, yoghurt etc - wow this is going to be hard), until Easter Day as the body & Spirit is cleansed of impurities and prepared for the Resurrection. Most Greeks nowadays tend to fast according to their own variation of the rules: some people abstain from meat and dairy products on Wednesdays and Fridays (which have religious significance in the Greek Orthodox Church), others abstain from meat the whole week except for Sunday, while others may give up milk in their coffee, and some only fast during Holy week (Megali evthomatha).
I have no idea what the menu for this day is, but so far the most popular dishes from my recce on the web are:
Taramosalata - Fish Roe (ταραμοσαλάτα)
Flame Grilled Octopus (χταπόδι στη σχάρα) - or cooked in a wine sauce
I'll be washing mine down with vast quantities of tsipouro
Calamari - my favourite, with lashings of fresh lemon juice
Gigandes Beans/Fasolada
Pickled Cauliflower and Carrots
Lagana Flatbread
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