SC - Re: "Thanksgiving" festivals in Period

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Catherine Deville wrote:

> It occurs to me that now would be an appropriate time to share some of the
> different fall harvest festivals from different cultures and times that
> we've come across in our research which occured during the SCA period
> (roughly 600-1600.)   What do we know about the festivals themselves, when
> they were held, what they entailed and of course, what foods might have
> 'traditionally" been served at such a feast.  While I recognize that the
> focus of the SCA is Europe, I'd, personally, also be interested in hearing
> non-Europe traditions from those who would like to share them.  (I'd also
> like to hear about holidays which preceed SCA period, such as the Roman
> festival of Pomona, which I'm currently researching.)

Two Irish dishes associated with Lughnasa (the festival of Lugh, Tuatha
de Danaan and de facto sun god) round about August first are mutton pies
(probably round like the sun), and colcannon, whose name means "white of
the leek", but now made with potatoes and cabbage mashed in with the
leeks. There are variants eaten by other Celtic groups, and variants
also depending on where in Ireland you are (sometimes using kale instead
of cabbage, or scallions or onions instead of leeks, etc.), but
apparently it is customary to speak a toast with the first bite of
colcannon: translated into English it goes, "Death to the Red Hag!" The
Red Hag being the Spirit of Hunger that struck Ireland in the mid-19th
century, but also a personification of the difficulties suffered in an
agrarian society in the month _before_ harvest: the old Gaelic name for
the month of July translates as "the month of the shaking out of the
bags". In other words, the Red Hag comes to visit when you're down to
the very last of last year's stored food, but the harvest isn't quite in
yet.  

I have no information on the age of colcannon, but a standard
Dublin-area variant is known as champ, which is associated with a
utensil called a beetle (a common colloquial expression in the area for
mulling something over, or deep consideration, is to "beetle [your]
champ") and a beetle is a utensil that appears to have been brought to
Ireland by the Vikings.

This is, of course, big-time speculation, but I suppose it's possible
some pre-Columbian version of these dishes might have existed in the
days before the introduction of the tater.

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com