Clean Monday
Clean Monday is a public holiday in Greece and Cyprus, where it is celebrated with outdoor excursions, the consumption of shellfish and other fasting food, a special kind of azyme bread, baked only on that day, named "lagana" () and the widespread custom of flying kites. Eating meat, eggs and dairy products is traditionally forbidden to Orthodox Christians throughout Lent, with fish being eaten only on major feast days, but shellfish is permitted in European denominations. This has created the tradition of eating elaborate dishes based on seafood (shellfish, molluscs, fish roe etc.). Traditionally, it is considered to mark the beginning of the spring season, a notion which was used symbolically in Ivan Bunin's critically acclaimed story, "Pure Monday".
Syrian Jewish cuisine
Since biblical times there have been Jews in the area comprising modern-day Syria. Syrian Jewish cuisine is distinct from Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine foods like gefilte fish, knish, or other dishes more familiar as Jewish in the United States, whose Jewish community was overwhelmingly Ashkenazi. In fact, in the diaspora Syrian Jewish dishes often differ from those of other Jews because they contain rice and dried fruits and other seasonings not found in other regional Jewish foodway. Because Jews are prohibited to mix meat and dairy, Syrian Jewish cuisine differed from standard Syrian cuisine because it used oil instead of butter or lamb fat in fried foods. After 1492 when the Sephardim were expelled from Spain, many Sephardic Jews came to Syria and brought a few dishes with Spanish names like "bastel". Some immigrants from Italy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (the so-called "Francos") brought with them Italian dishes such as "calsone" (a sort of cheese ravioli). These foods were intermixed with the local Syrian Mizrahi and Musta'arabi Jewish cuisine creating new flavors and styles. Syrian Jews also improved versions of Syrian dishes, by emphasizing fruit and sweet-sour flavors. The Syrian Jews of Aleppo also made heavy use of tamarind. In fact tamarind based sauces are distinctively unique to Syrian Jewish cuisine.