The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1931-12-11

There are a great many STOCKS with SHINY sur
faces, black, gold or silver; bright candy stripes
dash gayly across Others and one very popular
paper is rough-surfaced and almost spongy in
texture and brings out any printed design of
lettering in clear-cut outline that is most effec
tive.
Time was when Christmas dinner was many
weeks in the making and many hours in the
serving, but that was in the days before the
grocer around the corner brought even
nearer by the telephone and quick delivery serv-
ice, and every nearby restaurant offered menu
rivaling mothers own. Today even Christmas
dinner may be procured in cans, and fortunate
ly So Imagine modern woman in her neat
white enamel and shiny chromium plate kitchen
cite mixing together this recipe for "shred pie"
an old English Christmas favorite: 1.-TWO bushels
of flour, 20 pounds of butter, geese, 2 turkeys,
3 rabbits, wild ducks, woodcocks, snipe,
cartridges, heats tongues, 3 curlews, black
birds, pigeans" Or even let her undertake
the days cooking with which little Sally Fair
fax of Virginia writing in her diary in It'll,
credits her mother: a. Mamma made six mince
pies and seven custards, twelve tarts, one chick
ing pie and four buildings y"
When Christmas feasting was in its heydey
scarcely self-respecting menu but included:
"Beefe, mutton and porke,
Shred pies Of the best;
Pig, veale, goose and capon.
And turkie well drest."
There was also the famous boar's head, lemon
In mouth and ears wreathed around with rose
mary; the peacock, roasted, sewn back into its
own skin with every lovely feather in place;
generously garnished and carried in on golden
platter with due ceremony; launches of ven
ison, plum porridge, frumenty and the steam
ing hot wassail drink The shred pie, unlike it's
modern descendant the mince pie, was baked
in long dish, shaped like the cradle, or manger
of Bethlehem. However this lavish outlay of
food may, in the reading, make the mouth wa
ter, there was probably in the tasting another
side to the story Imagine the fastidious and
vitamine-conscous gourmand of today seated
in some huge smoky baronial hall before
dinner served up by nondescript retinue of
servants from mysterious dark cellars and smelly
kitchens and consisting Of .. thirty-pound
buttered eggs, pies of carp's tongues, pheasants
drenched with ambergris, and a single peacock
covered with sauce made from gravy of the
bruised carcasses of three fat wethers!"
Nevertheless, it is to this old-time cookery
that we owe many of our favorite Christmas
dishes, and at no other time of year does the
modern kitchen show such furry of old-fash
toned activity as now. The Christmas turkey is
of course, Americas contribution to the feast ;
and is found on almost every American table,
Time was when one of the most important
duties Of the last few days before Christmas
was to cut, bring into the house, and set up the
Christmas tree, which had been marked out from
its sisters in the old back woOdlot months ago
for this very purpose, and tenderly watched over
ever since. Onto it's fresh, fragrant branches
went homemade tapers, fancy paper cut-outs
: strings of popcorn prepared with much ado by
the children themselves.
Its glowing lights, it's shining tinsel strings,
Its sparkling colored balls represent the age
old love man has felt for warmth and light,
for the sheltered companionship of the open
hearth, for the life-givng rays of the sun. In
them the Christmas tree carries on the purpose
of the old heather festival to which our mod
ern celebration in some ways corresponds, ex-
pressing their Joy at the return of the winter
solstice when the sun once more became friend
ly to men, when days commenced to lengthen,
and spring was not so far away. Our modern
Christmas tree decorations are thus in one sense
merely modern symbols of the sun, descendants
of the burning barrel and the flaming torch with
which the ancients used to worship it. Martin
Luther made the first Christian use of the tree,
when he set up In his home in Germany for
his own children, little fir tree, and hung it
with candles, like the stars he explained to
them, which lighted the night of the Nativity.
The fir tree is still regarded as the Christ
mas tree par excellence, particularly in the
northeastern and lake states, because of it's
long, spreading and springy branches and its
deep green and fragrant foliage which stays
fresh longer than that of almost any other tyne
In the western states fir, while abundant, it
is harder to reach and cut and its place Is
largely taken by lodgepole pine and spruce,
while on the Pacific coast white fir Is most
popular.
(0 by Western Newspaper Unionl