By Donna Cornelius
Some churches have bake sales. Others have fellowship dinners.
But there aren’t many church events that involve making 12,000 stuffed grape leaves.
At St. Elias Maronite Catholic Church in downtown Birmingham, volunteers have to cook enough food to feed the thousands who attend its annual Lebanese Food and Culture Festival. This year’s 18th annual festival is April 8 and 9.
“The first year, we had about 3,000 people attend,” said church member Norman Bolus. “Last year, we had about 8,500 to 9,000.”
He and his brother, Paul Bolus, came up with the idea for the festival after attending similar ones in Birmingham.
“We’d go to the Greek and St. George Melkite festivals and say, ‘Why couldn’t our church have one?’” Norman said. “In 1998, we decided it was either time to do it or to quit talking about it. We got approval to do it for one year.”
The project took some time to plan, so St. Elias’ first Lebanese festival was in 1999.
“That first year, we did 10 times better than we thought,” Norman said. “It really took off.”
The brothers grew up in Birmingham and are lifelong St. Elias members. Paul is an attorney with Bradley Arant Boult Cummings, and Norman is program director and an assistant professor for the UAB Nuclear Medicine Technology program.
Both said it was important to them and other church members that the festival promote not just food, but also Lebanese culture.
“We were losing some of our traditions, and this gives us an opportunity to preserve them,” Norman said. “From the very beginning, we wanted to get our youth involved. A lot were drifting away from and not keeping up with traditions.”
One way the church’s young people participate in the festival is by performing traditional Lebanese dances.
“Theresa Garnem has led our kids in dancing since the beginning,” Paul said. “We have five to eight groups, from children 4 years old to young adults, and many teachers. They start practicing three months before the festival. The teens love it.”
Festival-goers can tour the church, either with guides or on their own.
“Oftentimes, people would ask, ‘Now, which church are you?’” Paul said. “We didn’t have a presence in the community. That’s one reason we have church tours. Lil Harrison, who is in charge of the tours, is always amazed at how many people like to see the church.”
The Amin Sultan Lebanese Band from New York plays under a big tent both nights of the festival.
“There’s a whole Lebanese community in Birmingham,” Paul said. “Our church has about 300 families and about 500 members.”
St. Elias Maronite Catholic Church was founded in 1910. The Maronite church is an Eastern rite Catholic church.
“There are actually 23 rites of Catholicism with Roman Catholic the most prominent,” Paul said. “We’re under the authority of the pope.”
Those who love to try foods from different cultures will find a feast of opportunity at the St. Elias festival. The church is full of good cooks, Norman and Paul said. And that posed a challenge when the original festival menu was being planned.
“We had to have a blind bake-off to choose the recipes,” Paul said. “People have their own recipes for dough for spinach pies, for grape leaves.
“It was very controversial,” he said, laughing.
Dishes were numbered and tasted before final selections were made.
“We never told anyone which recipe we went with,” Paul said.
Norman said it’s important to be consistent from year to year with taste and quality.
“The ladies we work with are exacting,” Norman said. “If something’s not right, it’s going back.”
Samia Michael, whose specialty is tabbouleh, is one church cook who insists on excellence, the brothers said. Tabbouleh is traditionally made of tomatoes, parsley, mint, bulgur wheat and onion and seasoned with olive oil, lemon juice and salt.
“She picks out her own tomatoes and other fresh ingredients,” Paul said. “She uses fresh lemon juice. If the parsley isn’t pretty enough, it doesn’t make the cut.”
The festival’s thin bread is made on a special contraption called a saj.
“It’s like an upside-down dome heated with natural gas,” Paul said. “You place the dough on a pillow and then put it on the grill. You can see a demo at the festival.”
Green beans called loobia are included with the entrée plates sold at the festival. The beans have become so popular that regular attendees have asked if they can buy just the beans, Paul said.
“We don’t sell them separately because we can’t make them fast enough,” he said. “We put green beans and tomatoes in a huge braiser. If we’re not at least two braisers ahead when we get to our busiest time, everything stops.”
Isabelle Mathis, Norman and Paul’s aunt, makes fresh zlaybah.
“They’re fried doughnuts with a butter-syrup mixture put on them,” Norman said.
The Lebanese festival has been a way for St. Elias to fund church programs and to help its community.
“From the very beginning, we’d give back,” Norman said. “Twenty-five percent of the proceeds goes outside the church. We don’t have the capacity to have our own soup kitchen, so we’ve donated to organizations like the Red Door and to Birmingham Catholic Charities. This is a way we can show a Christian attitude.”
More than $384,000 has been given to organizations outside the church since the festival started, the Bolus brothers said.
“Groups in the church get money, too, such as our youth and young adult groups and the ladies altar society,” Norman said. “They’re fully funded for the year.”
After tornados devastated the Birmingham area and other parts of Alabama in 2011, festival proceeds focused on helping storm victims.
“The tornados hit on the Thursday before the festival, and we weren’t sure we should even have it,” Paul said. “We decided to open and donated to Magic City Harvest to help relief efforts in Ensley.”
The festival now includes the Cedar Run 5K and Cedar Shake Fun Run on Saturday. The runs are organized by the church’s younger members.
“Our MYA – the young adults group – came to us and said they’d like to be in charge of something,” Norman said.
The 5K and fun run benefit the Suki Foundation. Suki, an acronym for Spreading Unconditional Kindness Intentionally, aims to educate the community, fund local research and help families with children diagnosed with Rett syndrome.
While some food festivals offer drive-through lines, St. Elias doesn’t – for a reason.
“We have a take-out window with designated parking spots,” Paul said. “We want people to get out. We’d love for them to take that extra 10 to 15 minutes and come in and look around.”
St. Elias also offers Friday lunch deliveries in the downtown Birmingham area.
Festival hours are 10 a.m.-9 p.m. both days. The church is at 836 Eighth St. South in Birmingham. Admission is free.
For a menu, festival schedule and parking information, visit www.stelias.org. To register for the 5K or fun run, visit www.cedarrun5k.com.
Do Try This at Home: A Recipe From St. Elias
You’ll find a booth at the Lebanese Food and Culture Festival where you can buy hats, T-shirts and other items – including a cookbook called “The Lebanese Palate: Recipes and Traditions from Saint Elias Maronite Catholic Church.” Here’s a recipe from the book to try at home.
Babaganouj (eggplant dip)
Ingredients:
2 medium eggplants
½ cup lemon juice
2 tablespoons tahini (see cook’s note)
1 to 2 tablespoons water
1 clove garlic
½ teaspoon salt
1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil
Parsley sprigs
Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Pierce the eggplants with a fork and bake for approximately 30 minutes, turning frequently.
When the eggplants are soft and the skins are loose, remove from the oven and cool under running water. Peel, seed and mash the pulp thoroughly. Add the lemon juice, tahini and water to the eggplant. Mix well. Mash garlic and salt together and stir into the dip.
Pour into a serving bowl; garnish with parsley and olive oil. Serve with crackers, fresh vegetables or pita wedges.
Cook’s note: Tahini is a sesame seed paste that can be found at most large and specialty grocery stores.