Happy Thanksgiving!

image from Hubpages.

The baking marathon is complete.  There will be 27 people at dinner today.  Hope your holiday is full of fun and family and you remember all that you have to be thankful for! 

Happy May!

May flowers, or pink hawthorn
blossoms.  Wikipedia image.

As I went out one May morning,
One May morning betim,
I met a maid from home had strayed,
Just as the sun did shine

What makes you rise so soon, my dear,
Your journey to pursue?
Your pretty little feet they tread so sweet,
Strike off the morning dew.

I'm going to feed my Father's flock,
His young and tender lambs,
That over hills and over dales
Lie waiting for their dams. 

May Queen and her court, British Columbia,
Canada, ca. 1887.  Wikipedia image.

O stay! O stay! you handsome maid,
And rest a moment here,
For there is none but you alone
That I do love so dear.

How gloriously the sun doth shine,
How pleasant is the air;
I'd rather rest on a true love's breast
Than any other where.

For I am thine and thou art rnine;
No man shall uncomfort thee.
We'll join our hands in wedded bands
And a-married we will be.
--"Searching for Lambs", traditional.

Celebrate the Queen's Jubilee with a special afternoon tea

Cherries Jubilee, Wikimedia Commons.

 Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and Queen Victoria are the longest-reigning monarchs in the history of the U.K. -- amazing that they beat out all the men!  There are a lot of events and festivities scheduled for this weekend in the U.K., the Commonwealth nations, and in households where Brits, Canadians, and their friends live, including the Sunday Lunch (tomorrow).  Red, white and blue bunting, ribbons, and flags are used to decorate homes, businesses, and even cakes this year!  Many people are decorating regular cakes with the Union flag in fondant, or red and blue sprinkles, but why not adapt a recipe or two invented for Queen Victoria's Jubilee back in 1897 and bring some history into it?

May Day and spring traditions in the Victorian era.

Primroses.  Photo: Nikolay Dimitrov.

The Victorian era is famous for its nostalgia and love of sentimental customs. Many Victorian traditions have roots going back hundreds of years, often including veiled references to Medieval Celtic folklore and pagan deities.  In the Victorian era, May Day, or May 1, was the middle of spring, and was marked with a fair, parade, dances, and lots of floral decorations.  The traditional celebrations often began with “bringing in the May”, which involved getting up very early in the morning on May Day, and going into the country to pick flowers to decorate the town with, as well as make preparations for the parade and other festivities.  Women were also said to bathe their faces with dew from the grass and flowers on May morning, to preserve their beauty. 

Cowslips.  Photo: Nickolay Dimitrov.

Early St. Patrick's Day traditions.

Hore Abbey, Cashel Ireland.  Photo: www.pdphoto.com

By the 17th century, St. Patrick’s Day was still primarily a religious holiday, marked with a special Mass and religious symbolism. Secular celebrations of the holiday fed off of and extended the religious activity, and included processions to the church, which undoubtedly became the popular parades of today.  Instead of wearing green, 17th century upper and middle class Irishmen and women made and wore crosses on badges, probably using the popular Celtic cross, while the lower class residents pinned a shamrock to their hat for the day.  Due to pressure from England to abandon the Irish language and culture, the shamrock was becoming a nationalist symbol for the Irish.

Cuccidati for Christmas!

Homemade cuccidati!

I remember having a huge pink bakery box of Italian Christmas cookies at my grandma's house every year.  Being allergic to nuts, I couldn't eat many of those cookies, but I remember how good they looked and how everyone enjoyed them.  I've been making more of an effort to research Italian and Sicilian traditions, especially holiday and food traditions, and re-create them.  This year, it was Sicilian Spiced Fig Cookies, or Cuccidati.  Instead of the traditional filling of spices, dried fruit and nuts, I left out the nuts and made a cookie that I could eat!  Here is the recipe that I used:

Holiday baking.

Cuccidati (but they're missing their sprinkles) from Wikipedia. 

I'll be working on some holiday baking this afternoon before I sing my last two gigs with the Lyric Theatre Victorian Carolers later today, so we'll see how much I can get done.  On the schedule: Sicilian cuccidate, more gingerbread (cake) and gingerbread cookies, and possibly some Italian anginetti and/or anise toast. 

The gingerbread cake will be for gifts, along with jars of homemade jam.  The gingerbread cookies will be made in two shapes: houses and donkeys.  The gingerbread houses will be decorated as Victorian houses, and the donkeys will be decorated like Italian donkeys (with red saddle and blue bow around neck).  The other cookies will be for the family.  There is a lot of advance preparation, and chilling of the dough, so I'd better get started!

New costume idea (someday!): traditional costume from Calabria, Southern Italy.

I went to the Italian American Heritage Foundation's Italian Family Festa last weekend! I had been wanting to attend for years but finally made it, and it was a lot of fun. While a lot of it was vendors selling cheesy Italian slogan T-shirts, there was a cool booth with some ladies making Italian bobbin lace, and a bulletin board with color postcards of traditional Italian folk costumes. I have been wanting to make Italian folk costume for a while but now I have some pictures to work with!

The (brief) history of Valentine's Day.

image from AuntiesClipArt.com

Valentine's Day has been celebrated in most Western countries for hundreds of years; like many Western traditions it has both a religious and secular side. Late winter and spring celebrations, including activities related to marriage and fertility, have been part of many cultures throughout time. Birds and animals choose their mates in the springtime, and with the brightening days and the approach of warmer weather, a general spirit of celebration and renewal seems natural to humans, as well.

In the ancient Roman and Celtic cultures, the season invoked some promiscuous sexual behaviors, especially among the young men and women. The Roman Saturnalia is said to have been accompanied by games in which the men and women would choose sexual partners for the next 12 months, to be changed again the next year. These orgies and activities were supposed to be scheduled as part of the worship of various Roman and other deities, especially those associated with fertility and the home. Cupid or Eros, as the son of the goddess Venus or Aphrodite, is a remnant of that era still remembered today.

The Valentine's Day holiday has become especially associated with the Victorian era. According to tradition, the holiday is named after at least two ancient Roman citizens. One story tells of the Roman Emperor Claudius II who thought that single men made more loyal, willing soldiers, and he forbade all the young men to marry, so that nothing would keep them from joining the army. A priest named Valentine defied the Emperor by performing secret marriage ceremonies for young couples, and was beheaded for his disobedience when he was finally caught. Because of his kindness and self-sacrifice, the local people petitioned to have him declared a saint, the patron saint of lovers.

Another story tells of another priest named Valentine who made friends with everyone he met, especially the local children. The Roman Emperor wanted to be worshipped as the god of the Roman Empire and Valentine was imprisoned because he wouldn’t comply with this order. While in prison, he remained the friend of children, even miraculously healing the jailer’s blind daughter. His young friends from town missed him and wrote love notes to him, tossing them through the window of his jail cell, and he wrote notes back to them, signing them (according to tradition), "from your Valentine". He was also later beheaded, and declared a saint, and the local people remembered his kindness and his miraculous healing of the jailer's daughter.

The date of February 14th became associated with St. Valentine and the older traditions in the year 496 A.D., when it was declared St. Valentine's Day by the Church. Religious activities marked this day, as with all other saints' days. A secular layer was added on February 14, 1415, when Charles, the Duke of Orleans, sent a rhymed love letter to his wife in France, from his cell in the Tower of London, where he was imprisoned after the Battle of Agincourt. Even William Shakespeare mentioned St. Valentine's Day, among Ophelia's lines in Hamlet.

By the Victorian era, the older Valentine's Day traditions associated with fertility and sexuality had been "gentrified" into more child-friendly, romantic, sentimental, and even spiritual activities. Many traditions involved fortune-telling, specifically to help young women find out who they would marry; potions to make him appear in dreams, curious items that represented his initials, and any number of cosmetics to attract him, were all associated with this holiday.
-- Sources: The World Book Encyclopedia, and From Your Valentine: Valentines from the Past, by Roselynn Ederer.