“There’s nothing better than when deep joy holds sway throughout the realm and banqueters up and down the palace site in ranks… the tables heaped with bread and meats… the steward makes his rounds and keeps the winecups flowing” The Odyssey, Book IX, 5-10
Take any modern novel written in the last fifty years off the shelf and read it. What do you encounter? Perhaps a stream-of-consciousness style, a startling frankness bordering on obscenity regarding sexuality, a certain mundane setting and an even more ordinary character. One thing you will not find, however, is mention of feasting and festivals. What once was so common in literature is now conspicuously absent.
For instance, in The Odyssey, The Iliad, or The Aeneid it seems the reader can hardly make it through one hundred lines before the heroes are feasting or celebrating. In Beowulf one encounters the ubiquitous mead hall and the ever full benches, where horns brimming with bright mead are quaffed by characters larger than life. Nor are these occasions limited to poetry. In The Sagas of the Icelanders almost every raid or battle is followed by a lavish feast. Charles Dickens was known for his vivid descriptions of dinners and food. Several of the most crucial plot points in The Count of Monte Cristo occur around a dinner table. Until recent times the larder of literature had been well-stocked.
Literature often reflects the traditions and values of the time and culture in which it was written. In fact, up until the beginning of the 20th century it would strike readers as odd if there wasn’t mention of feasts, festivals, or other fodder-fueled events in their books. Curiously enough, the only modern books where feasting makes an important appearance are fantasy novels which take place in a medieval setting (A Song of Ice and Fire and The Lord of the Rings come to mind). What this absence of feasting in most literature today suggests is that not only have we lost an appreciation for holidays and meals in general, but also, are enjoyment of these holidays is lessened because we have become increasingly estranged from the food that we eat. To me this is one of the great tragedies of modern living.
Medieval life was a grueling one: as an agrarian society (between 80-90% of the population were farmers) starvation was just one bad harvest away. But even though it was a hard life that doesn’t mean it was a joyless one. There were over sixty holy days in the medieval calendar, and many of these days were celebrated through feasts. These were times of frivolity, merrymaking, dances, and copious amounts of food. The whole tenor of a medieval holiday was one of overflowing joy and thanksgiving. Joy that one was alive and thankfulness that the harvest was good. Mayday, Midsummer’s Day, Michaelmas, the Vernal and Autumnal Equinox, and the Solstices are just a few examples of the many feast days celebrated in the Middle Ages (and this excludes the major holidays of Christmas and Easter).
Contrast the medieval holiday calendar with that of today’s and the paucity becomes striking. I can think of only a handful: Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving. And only one of those truly deserves to be called a feast. But while this observation is striking it is by no means surprising. There are only two million farmers in America, just over 1% of the employed population. And many of these full-time farmers now focus on growing corn and soybeans. It’s no wonder, then, that a population divorced from an understanding of where their food comes from and how it is grown will cease to value celebrations revolving around food.
I do not think this decline in relevance of holidays is entirely attributable to our society exchanging the farm for the city. Indeed, plenty of townspeople in past times enjoyed and celebrated holidays with feasting as evidenced by references to feast days in cities found in the aforementioned epics (Dido’s feast in Carthage in The Aeneid and Menelaus’ Spartan feast in The Iliad), as well as in The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a codex detailing the reign of Alfred the Great in 9th century Wessex. These texts span from the Bronze Age to the Medieval Age and present both nobles and commoners alike partaking in festivities. What I do think has largely contributed to this celebratory-malaise in our culture is its insistence on convenience. We have exchanged sacrifices to the god of grain for ones offered up to ease and comfort.
Recollect, if you can, how you prepared for your most recent Thanksgiving, our culture’s remaining feast holiday. I know I went to the grocery store, where I purchased the turkey, sweet potatoes, cranberries, and green beans that I would eat. In fact, everything I ate for Thanksgiving (and I would hazard everything you ate) was entirely store-bought, grown by someone else far away from where I actually live. Even though I cooked the food there was still no connection with the meal itself. If I had burned the turkey or ruined the sweet potatoes the worst that could happen was that I would go to the store and buy more. Therefore, not only has meaning gone from the meal itself (procuring food has become less arduous and growing it all but extinct), but also the importance of the process of preparing the meal has lost significance as well. And this is precisely what has caused the decline in meaning and enjoyment of feasts in our society when compared to ancient times. We are so far removed from the cost associated with obtaining food that an occasion devoted to celebrating it seems almost absurd. It becomes a mere formality. A recollection of something forgotten. A shadow of an image once seen. At best holiday feasting has become an empty ritual, at worst an event to be dreaded.
It is not my intention to cast a pall of gloom over our times or say that progress in agriculture is a bad thing. Indeed, the Green Revolution has been incredible in that it has allowed so few to produce for so many. It has freed us from the fear of famine and starvation. It has enabled us to try and experience foods that before were only available to the fabulously wealthy or incredibly well-traveled. And there are bright spots to be seen in the growing movement of diners seeking out farm-to-table eating options. But everything has its cost. And I fear the benefit of ease, convenience, and material well-being comes at too high of a spiritual price. When holidays and festivals lose their cultural luster we lose an intangible part of what makes us human.
Happy Reading,
Drew