Actually the tradition appears to be far older and possibly more mercenary. The delighted monarch decreed that the day would be celebrated hereafter with a feast of goose. The featured pièce de résistance at such feasts was roast goose-supposedly because Queen Elizabeth I was dining on goose on the crucial Michaelmas when the news arrived of the defeat of the Spanish Armada. These were traditionally celebrated on Michaelmas Day-October 10, until the Gregorian calendar, adopted in 1752, bumped it back to September 29-and involved a wildly costumed Lord of the Harvest, song and dance, horseplay, and a lot of eating and drinking. The American Thanksgiving-first celebrated in 1621 by the surviving Pilgrims and assorted Wampanoag Indians-traces its roots to ancient British harvest festivals. It’s associated with bountiful crops and babies, and is traditionally celebrated with mooncakes, round pastries stuffed with red bean or lotus seed paste and whole salted egg yolks, these last representing the fertility-associated full moon. ![]() The Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the oldest harvest festivals in the world, dating back to at least the 10th century BCE. Zambians celebrate N’cwala, a three-week-long first-fruits bash, highlights of which are dancing and the presentation of the season’s first ripe pumpkin to the village chief.Ī successful harvest, to our ancestors, was the ultimate safety net, the modern-day equivalent of money in the bank-and it was worth a party. (A rowdier precursor of Lammas was the Gaelic first-fruit festival Lughnasadh-often centered around the first ripe bilberries-which featured bonfires, horse races, and the sacrifice of a bull.) The Creeks and Seminoles of the American southeast threw Green Corn Dances in honor of the first ripe corn. Early Christians celebrated Lammas-August 1-with loaves of bread baked from the first ripe grain. The ancient Israelites paraded their first ripe crops-wheat, barley, grapes, figs, dates, pomegranates, and olives-to the temple, accompanied by music and carried in baskets trimmed with silver and gold. Take first-fruit festivals, which have been hot events around the globe since ancient times, cheering-depending on who and where you are-the initial ripening of everything from barley to yams, raspberries, and sugarcane. ![]() When you look at the history of holidays, it becomes clear that the human race spends a lot of time whooping it up about food.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |