Dr Jacqueline Rowarth: Ancient agricultural festivals highlight food’s cultural significance

Has the meaning of Easter been lost in a tidal wave of chocolate bunnies and eggs? Photo / 123RF

THREE KEY FACTS

• Ancient agricultural celebrations marked seasonal changes and were linked to food production and deities.
• Easter’s origins can be overshadowed by modern food traditions like chocolate eggs and hot cross buns.
• Despite changes, sharing food remains central to cultural celebrations, emphasising family and milestones.

There are eight moments in the agricultural calendar that have been celebrated since ancient times.

They acknowledge the turning of the year, the change of the seasons, and all are connected with food production.

Some align with moments of religious significance in the Christian calendar, but all are involved with deities of some sort or another.

A big part of the celebrations was offerings to the gods to ensure a good harvest and survival during the winter, but the celebrations themselves were for families and friends.

Food, families and friends are part of culture.

A recent article in The Conversation describes the holy trinity (to a foodie) of breakfast, lunch and dinner.

A more traditional trinity is the focus of Easter, but with the tidal wave of bunnies and eggs of the chocolate type, plus hot cross buns of an ever-increasing variety, including chocolate, it isn’t surprising that the origin of the celebration of Easter is being lost in the focus on food.

The biblical Last Supper occurring, according to some investigations, on April 1, AD33 is thought to have included unleavened bread, bitter herbs (horseradish, dandelion, chicory, for example) and a roasted lamb.

By Elizabethan times in England, the Easter menu was far more sumptuous.

In addition to the roasted lamb, there was venison, veal and beef, pigs and piglets, as well as chicken and many eggs.

Breads and cakes were also part of the celebration. (But chocolate didn’t reach Merrie England until 1657, when things weren’t at all merry under Oliver Cromwell.)

The next celebration in the agricultural calendar is Beltane (Labour Day in modern times), occurring between Easter and Midsummer.

Traditional foods were oatcakes and spring vegetables, including nettles.

The main celebrations were, however, focused on fertility, with maypoles (joining the land and the sky) and maidens dancing around them with ribbons.

By Midsummer day, the cereals for bread were running out.

Some of the behaviours around Midsummer Madness have been attributed to ergot poisoning from poor quality grain and others to St John’s Wort (which wards off evil spirits and counteracts depression but can lead to manic swings in behaviour).

The start of the cereal harvest was celebrated on August 1 (Lammas) with breads and cakes baked with the new season’s grain.

In mid-September, the equinox (Mabon) was acknowledged with seasonal fruits such as apples, pears, pumpkins and root vegetables.

Halloween is a time for jack-o'-lanterns. Photo / 123RF

Samhain (Halloween) followed, and this is still the time of festivals celebrating the harvest being completed, as well as warding off the bad spirits and appeasing others with gifts of food and wine.

Samhain was the time for counting up what food was in the stores.

As people moved into the dark months, survival depended on food supplies, and that depended on benign deities.

Yule (Christmas) was the time when spring (in the northern hemisphere) was on its way again, with the promise of future harvests if one could get through the next few months.

Feasting at Yule often meant consuming foods that might not be edible if left.

Finally, before reaching Easter (Ostara is the equinox) again, shoots of green were welcomed through the snow on the 1st of February (Imbolc).

The traditional food was cabbage and potatoes (termed colcannon in Ireland), sometimes with bacon and oatcakes.

Listen to Rowena Duncum interview Dr Jacqueline Rowarth on The Country below:

Some of the food and drink would be set aside for deities.

The year was governed by food availability and survival.

Life was precarious because of health (malnutrition and diseases) and food.

Things have changed since then.

Refrigeration and freezing preserve food in peak condition.

Food is brought to central places (supermarkets) where it is constantly available and can be purchased in ready-to-eat condition all year round.

What hasn’t changed is the importance of sharing food.

The recognition of family and achieving a milestone of some sort (birthday, anniversary, promotion) is still uppermost in creating feasts.

In his 1976 book Culture and Communication, British social anthropologist and Cambridge University academic Sir Edmund Leach observed: “Food is an especially appropriate mediator because when we eat, we establish, in a literal sense, a direct identity between ourselves (culture) and our food (nature).”

Food, then, has both a material and a symbolic significance.

For New Zealand, with a relatively recent culture, food has possibly even more cultural significance.

CJ Collier, a hāngī entrepreneur based in Wellington, has explained that hāngī is more than food.

“Having hāngī reminds me of my whānau and close family friends because whenever we’d have it growing up as a kid, it would be for special occasions, for birthdays or tangi or people coming back from overseas.”

Cultures are mixing.

The breads of Ostara have crosses from Christianity (hot cross buns).

Harvest festival pumpkins have candles in them to ward off the evil spirits (jack-o’-lanterns).

For the foodies amongst us, the celebration is easy.

For the food producers, watching the skies and the global trends in climate and economics and wondering which deities might be operating, there is always a mix of concerns.

But the goal remains producing good food for people to eat.

And providing food for their families and friends.