The Need for Feasting
By: Jessica Archuleta
Tags: Cooking, Culture, Food, Fasting, Feasting

“Ahhh.” Patting his belly and smiling a Cheshire-cat sized grin, my son joyfully said, “Well I’m full of lamb and I’ll be good for another 365 days.”

You see, it’s been Bright Week for my family and an annual Bright Week meal we have is Mediterranean style lamb kebabs. We made the usual sides of buttery basmati rice, a scrumptious Greek salad, and garlicky-buttery Greek yogurt sauce and a perfectly-spicy roasted tomato and chile sauce to pour over the lamb and rice and soak up in the Greek pita bread. All washed down with a lovely ginger beer.

What’s Bright Week, you ask, and why does my son have to wait a whole year before eating lamb again? Let me explain.

For your first question: Bright Week follows Pascha (Easter). In my religious tradition we celebrate the Resurrection of Christ for 50 days (until the Pentecost) and the first week is especially a time to celebrate after breaking the long fast of Great Lent and experiencing the light of Christ shining forth from the empty tomb — why it’s called “Bright Week.”

Now to your second question: Lamb is reserved for feasts and special occasions in our family. Feasting is a vital aspect of our lives and teaches us many things.

My perfectly-content-after-a-plate-of-grilled-lamb-kebabs-son, would agree and tell you the benefits of having one of his favorite foods only on special occasions.

My entire family looks forward to eating lamb. Even our youngest relish it. I know besides it being a delicious food, the fact that we eat it scarcely adds to it being a favorite meal. We will eat it lamb a couple of times during the Pascha (Easter)season: We make it during Bright Week and will enjoy lamb with our church community.

If we are out at a nice Greek or Mediterranean restaurant (another rare occasion) and lamb is on the menu, it’s likely to be ordered. As a matter of fact, the last time my son had lamb was when we were on vacation in Santa Fe and ate Middle Eastern food. So at most, we may eat it 3 times a year.

I had noticed when picking up the lamb roasts for Bright Week feasting that the lamb was only $5.99 a pound. That is comparable to many beef roasts and even cheaper than some. I tend to buy ground beef, chicken, and pork for our regular eating and they are less expensive than lamb. But I do pick up occasional chuck roasts and other cuts of beef too. Because some of the regular meats I buy are the same price or even more, I got to thinking,

Why don’t I buy lamb more often throughout the year?

Of course, I knew why. As tempting as it is to buy a lamb roast over a beef roast, if I do, the lamb wouldn’t be special anymore; it wouldn’t be feasting food.

It used to be that meat was a rare commodity amongst the average person, never mind poor people. It was saved for Sunday night dinner, special holidays and feast days (like Christmas and Easter). People didn’t have the luxury of buying and eating meat once a day, never mind at two or three meals in a day!

There are still people who eat like that due to poverty. Poverty isn’t good, of course, and we should do what we can to eliminate it. One thing that people in my Christian tradition are supposed to do is fast from meat during Great Lent and use some of the money saved from buying meat to do charitable deeds — like feeding the poor.

We have several items we only eat on holidays in my family. Ginger Beer for example, is only bought once a year and we look forward to enjoying it with our lamb feast. See’s Candies are a once a year treat. This used to be the way most people ate but many of us now have access to everything all the time.

Those of you not lacking access to meat or other pricier foods or just special foods throughout the year, whether you fast for religious reasons or not, can learn from my religious tradition (and many other religions that have a similar tradition).

The benefits are many and substantial. Here’s a short list:

Nothing makes food taste divine like fasting from it for a period of time.

When you make drastic changes to your regular diet, you begin to take a closer look at your food choices.

You become a more mindful eater, shopper, and consumer.

Having special foods for specific occasions adds to the joy of the occasion.

Feasting teaches us that certain times are set aside. Certain days, events, and holidays are special. Sadly, feasting well is becoming something of a lost art in our fast-paced, over-abundant, convenience and consumer-driven society.

Bright Monday, the day after Pascha Sunday, is referred to as “Smell the Breeze Day” because it should be a day to rest and enjoy the beauty of life with your loved ones, possibly sitting outside enjoying the spring air.

We need to recover the art of feasting and resting.

Restraint from consuming certain foods that we could buy all year long and keeping them for special occasions is one way to begin doing this.

If we eat seasonally, our pocketbooks would thank us and we would have a positive impact on our environment.

If we learn to cut back and consume less, we could benefit others who don’t have the option of fasting or cutting back because they already lack too much.

Learning to not be addicted to productivity and stop to “smell the breeze” every now and then would feed our souls.

I promise little changes would make an impact on your life and the lives of other people. Many of us have so much and lack little. Disciplining ourselves will bear much fruit in many ways.

Give it a try and see what happens!