I suppose all cultures have their own peculiar culinary rituals. In some locales, jungle tribes pass homemade liquor to every guest at a fire-side gathering, with each member drinking from the same hollowed-out coconut. It is forbidden to skip your turn – you simply have to drink until you pass out. In other places, groups gather at yuletide to eat celebratory cake, not knowing which slice contains the sacred bean which will elevate the eater to royalty before casting him down as a human sacrifice. And speaking of sacrifice, I've certainly been the recipient of some wafers and wine which were intended to represent something a bit more....lifelike. But seeing as how I'm not a regular church goer, I would have to say that my food rituals are usually confined to the requisite Old-Fashioned cocktail served when dining with the Tuckers. Not to make light of this ritual. Nothing makes a dinner of pernil, polenta and beer-sauteed kale better than a perfectly mixed drink imbibed after the gorging. However, in my recent travels around our ever-surprising city I have had the privilege of witnessing not one, but two unusual food rituals. Let's just say I've been busy.
As my “bio” here explains, my hunger for food and drink is really only matched by my hunger for art. And my preference has always been to enjoy these items with friends. So when a particularly talented couple I know invited me to a night of dinner, poetry and scotch, of course I said yes. The evening had an official title – A Burns Supper, celebrating the life of Scottish poet Robert Burns. A college-aged friend of mine immediately knew the reference but I, alas, have lived in ignorance of The Burns Supper all these years. Luckily, the internet exists, so I was able to fill this gap in my education with (hopefully) accurate information. Robert Burns lived, loved and drank in Scotland during the late 1700's. He wrote a huge body of work, containing poems both sentimental and satirical. I believe along the way he also fathered about 17 children (and never married). After his untimely death at 37 his friends began a yearly gathering to celebrate his life and works. The dinner features what might as well be Scottish national dish, Haggis, and an almost absurd amount of whiskey. Poetry is read. Songs are sung. All rejoice in the memory of a debauched eighteenth century poet who, as I learned, had a crappy day job just like the rest of us.
Fast forward to New York City, 2011. As might be expected, a group of 30-something artists had eagerly assembled for this august event. The traditional aspects of the dinner were there – the presentation of the haggis. The poem to the haggis. The cutting of the haggis. Haggis played a really big part here (luckily, my friends made a delicious vegetarian haggis. I have eaten real haggis in Scotland. I am a very adventurous eater. I could not finish it. There were sheeps' stomachs involved. Vegetarian haggis is definitely the way to go.) Of course, some of the evening was a bit foggy, but I believe that the memory of Robert Burns was toasted, as were a great many other things. We toasted the lads. We toasted the lassies. And at the end of the night, we each presented a work written by or inspired by Robert Burns. As I said, the man was quite (artistically) prolific so we experienced everything from love poems to humorous ballads to dancing babies. Two people even decided to pictorially riff on the “colorful” titles of Burns' poems. Needless to say, this was the NC-17 part of the evening. All in all I left the party feeling very full, a bit tipsy, extremely well-cultured, and quite curious about food traditions.
And as luck would have it, only a week later I was fortunate enough to be exposed to another culinary cultural event. This time, the locale of origin was Canada, Newfoundland to be exact. At a multi-birthday party (I believe that there was a total of 7 people celebrating their respective birthdays? Apparently February is a really popular time to have babies). One of the attendees decided that he could give the birthday boys and girls no better present than an initiation to the Newfoundland club. Yes, that's right, he made all of them official Newfoundlanders. In order to do this the group had to be “screeched in”. The ritual involved the drinking of darkly terrifying rum (known as Screech), the kissing of a dead fish, and the reciting of a dirty limerick. While it may not have involved haggis, I can't help but think that Robert Burns would have approved. Alas, I was not able to be “screeched in” that evening, so I continue my urban roamings, hoping to find even more truly icky culinary traditions to adopt as my own. I open this discussion to you, readers – what bizarre food rituals have you partaken in? And how do you suggest we organize parties around them?
