Forty martyrs meatballs

* Exported from MasterCook *

Forty martyrs meatballs

Recipe By : A Continual Feast by Evelyn Birge Vitz
Serving Size : 6 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories : Main Dish

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
1 1/2 pounds lamb -- ground
2 cloves garlic -- pressed
1 teaspoon salt
black pepper -- freshly ground
3 teaspoons mint -- dried
1/2 cup pine nuts
1/2 cup parsley -- finely chopped
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
lettuce

Combine the lamb with the garlic, salt to taste, pepper, mint, pine nuts
and parsley. Mix thoroughly. Form into 40 meat balls about 1 1/4 inches
in diameter. (Make it easy;divide the meat into 4 parts, divide each
part into 10 meatballs).
Heat the oil in a large skillet. Saute the meatballs until nicely
browned on the outside, but still a little pink on the inside. Turn them
often with a spatula. Remove excess grease as it is rendered.
Serve the meatballs on a bed of lettuce in 5 rows of 8 each or someother
clearly numerical arrangement.
With them serve Rice or Bulghur Pilaf
Variation: You can also add to the mixture 1/2 tsp allspice or
coriander.
In a number of countries a special dish is prepared once a year to honor
the memory of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste...
In Aremenia they eat forty stuffed wheat balls (whose ingredients are
hard to come by in this country); in Greece as well the Forty Martyrs
are honored by the eating of dishes that stress the number 40. There
are pies made with forty layers of phyllo pastry, dishes consisting of
forty pancakes or made with 40 kinds of wild herbs.
Marion Baumgarten Marion10@wwa.com
Mother to Martha (6) and Peter (3)
Die Wunderkinder

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THE FORTY MARTYRS OF SEBASTE (10 MARCH 320)

In the year 320, Constantine was Emperor of the West and Licinius of
the East. Licinius, under pressure from Constantine, had agreed to
legalize Christianity in his territory, and the two made an alliance
(cemented by the marriage of Licinius to Constantia the sister of
Constantine), but now Licinius broke the alliance and made a new
attempt to suppress Christianity. He ordered his soldiers to
repudiate it on pain of death. In the "Thundering Legion," stationed
near Sebaste in Armenia (now Sivas in Turkey), forty soldiers
refused, and when promises, threats, and beatings failed to shake
them, they were stripped naked one evening and herded onto the
middle of a frozen lake, and told, "You may come ashore when you are
ready to deny your faith." To tempt them, fires were built on shore,
with warm baths, blankets, clothing, and hot food and drink close
by. As night deepened, thirty-nine men stood firm, while one broke
and ran to the shore. However, one of the soldiers standing guard on
shore was so moved by the steadfastness of the Christians that he
stripped off his clothes and ran out to join them. They welcomed him
into their company, and so the number of the martyrs remained at
forty. At dawn, most were dead, and the few in whom a little life
remained were stabbed to death.

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