[Sca-cooks] weird question - honey fast???

[Johnna Holloway]

> Please enlighten me I cannot not figure how anyone one can fathom 
> honey as a meat product.
> Suey
Ok I hit Google Books this evening and came across a couple of unusual 
documents buried in that
vast archive of stuff.
 From
Senate Documents, Otherwise Publ. as Public Documents and Executive 
Documents: 14th Congress, 1st Session-48th Congress, 2nd Session and 
Special Session
By United States Congress. Senate
Published by , 1856
Original from Oxford University
Digitized Dec 7, 2006


  BEES, WAX, AND HONEY.


BEE-CULTURE IN RUSSIA.
The rearing of bees is extensively carried on in the several parts
of European Russia, particularly in the central and southern governments,
as well as in the Polish and in the trans-Caucasian provinces.
This insect acclimatises up to a very high latitude, even in Siberia.
It was long thought that the climate of the latter country
was utterly unsuitable for the rearing of bees ; but experiments made
at the commencement of the present century in the governments of
Tomsk, Omsk, and Jenisseisk have proved the contrary. It has
greatly suffered, however, in some provinces, from the destruction of
the forests ; for the bee prefers well wooded districts, where it is 
protected
from the wind. The honey procured from the linden tree (
Tilia eurapced) is only obtained at the little town of Kowno, on the
river Niemen, in Lithuania, which is surrounded by an extensive forest
of these trees, and where the rearing occupies the principal attention
of the inhabitants. The Jews of Poland furnish a close imitation
of this honey, by bleaching the common kinds in the open air
during frosty weather.
The ceremonies of the Greek church, requiring a large consumption
of wax candles, greatly favor this branch of rural economy in
Russia, and preserve it from the decline to which it is exposed in
other countries, from the increasing use of stearine, oil, gas, and other
fluids for illuminating purposes. The peasants produce wax so
cheaply that, notwithstanding the consumption of this article has
greatly diminished abroad, it still continues to form an important
item of the commerce of the country ; but the exportation of honey
has considerably increased in consequence of the extended use of potato
syrup, which has also injured the honey trade in the interior.
The rearing of bees is now almost exclusively dependent on the
manufacture of candles for religious ceremonies, and on the consumption
of honey during Lent, it being then used instead of sugar, by the
strict observers of the fasts. The government encourages this branch
of rural industry, as affording to the peasant an extra source of income,
and has adopted various measures for the accomplishment of
this end. With the view of diffusing the requisite knowledge among
the people of the public domains, bee-hives, and a course of practical
instruction upon the subject of bee-culture, have been established at
several of the crown farms, and pupils are sent every year, at the expense
of the government, to the special school in Tschernigow,
founded for the purpose, in 1828.

See also
Commentaries on the Productive Forces of Russia
By Ludwik Te;goborski
Published by Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1855
Original from the University of Michigan
Digitized Aug 4, 2006

So here we have honey being used instead of sugar during Lent in the 
19th century; perhaps
this is just the Eastern Orthodox Church. An Egg At Easter mentions that 
prior to the
Revolution, the Russians ate only vegetables, honey, fruit, and bread 
during Lent.
The Domostroi also indicates that they ate honey during Lent.

Johnnae