Formal dining events,
multiple course meals, the sharing of food and drink for ceremonial
and ritual purposes enrich the human experience —
A table laid for tea abounds with sweets, fruit and spirits.
A
cultural common ground is the sharing of food and drink with others.
The flip side of ritual fasting is ritual eating and drinking. Finding
the ties between community, friendship, spirituality, and food is not
difficult. Finding the time to express it in your own life is much more
challenging. Most families have their own traditional recipes for food
and drink which are served when they gather together to share important
meals. I know that we have our family favorites. However, we love to
try new things, too. Tofurkey might be a little much for most
practicing meatetarians on such ritual eating days (so prone
to strong opinions about how things should be done) as Thanksgiving,
but as the denizen of the kitchen you have the prerogative to expand
the culinary horizon for those who seat themselves around your table.
I say be bold, consider the possibilities. Open new cookbooks to new
pages you've never seen before. Blend ingredients with abandon. Experiment.
Be free to expand your cooking horizons. It will expand minds, even
as it expands waistlines. Besides, shaking things up now and then makes
for shared memories and stronger family ties. Um hmm.
A boy in Buffalo, N. Y., who
was asked to write out what he considered an ideal holiday dinner menu,
evolved the following:
Furst Corse. Mince pie.
Second Corse. Pumpkin pie and turkey.
Third Corse. Lemon pie, turkey, and cranberries
Fourth Corse. Custard pie, apple pie, chocolate cake and plum pudding.
Dessert. Pie.
- (Source: Toasts and Forms of Public Address
for Those Who Wish to Say the Right Thing in the Right Way, authored
by William Pittenger)
Links to More Fruit From Washington
Ritual Recipes
and Some of our own Comfort Foods
The Traditional Turkey Day Menu -
Thanksgiving
Traditional
Side Dishes -
Traditional
Turkey Dressing
Desserts -
Christmas Holiday
Cookies and Steamed Carrot Pudding
Halloween
Old-Fashioned Candied Apples
Beverages -
Christmas Cheer
Punch
Apple
Wassail Bowl
More Ritual Recipes and Ceremonial
Meal Preparation Links
Thanksgiving
Recipes
Passover
Prep and Ritual
Epiphany
or Twelfth Night Cake
Barony
of the Steppes - Twelfth Night Feast
Celtic
Recipes
from the 24th Annual Festival of Maidens Dessert Revel
Ritual
Meal Recipes Using Apples
Graceful
Living
Hackers
Kitchen by Avatar Holiday Recipes and Menus
Susan Woodward's Recipes I Didn't Get from my Mother Holiday
Feast
Vegetarian
Holiday Menus
Historical Menus
Ready to Turn Your Back on Traditional
Ritual Meals?
Start
New Christmas Traditions
Scandinavian
Roast Goose
Apple
and Mincemeat Filo Wreath - One of 100 Great Desserts
Presidential Menus
Menus
for State Dinners During the Carter Administration
Dinner
Menu in honor of Prime Minister Winston Churchill and his staff
given by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on August 9, 1941 on board
the United States Flagship Augusta at Ship Harbor, Newfoundland.
Blessings & Graces
Whenever people gather for food and drink, it is cause
for thanksgiving. We also have compiled a collection
of blessings and graces from various peoples and cultures.
Back to the Land - Seasonal Quotations
“‘Fine
fruit is the flower of commodities.’ It is the most perfect union
of the useful and the beautiful that the earth knows. Trees full of
soft foliage; blossoms fresh with spring bounty; and, finally, fruit,
rich, bloom-dusted, melting, and luscious.” - Andrew Jackson
Downing (which includes reference to a phrase from “acute essayist,”
Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Essay XIII Gifts (1844).
For more Seasonal Quotations from before
bloom to after harvest, see Fruit From Washington’s Fruitful
Literary and Traditional Quotes
