Our village is in the centre of a farming community and when the Harvest Festival is celebrated in October there is a real sense of thanksgiving. The church is filled with local produce: all surfaces covered with fruit, vegetables and flowers and a harvest loaf baked by a churchwarden on the altar. The pews are full and it is a very joyful occasion with loud singing of familiar hymns and a background of bells. After the service there is a Harvest lunch in the village hall where plates are loaded with local meats and homemade salads followed by blackberry and apple crumble with clotted cream. MrM bid furiously for a jar of local honey, home made apricot jam and the largest cauliflower I have ever seen in the auction of the harvest offerings and so we will be eating cauliflower cheese for a week. When we left the hall we could see the big field on the opposite hill was freshly ploughed, the end of one cycle and the beginning of the next.
when we lived in Porterville with wheat, sheep and cattle farmers the Harvest Festival had a quite different meaning to the version I grew up with.
ReplyDeleteGroceries please, no perishables.
I know that some communities use Harvest as an opportunity to donate to food banks but it is difficult to be joyful over a tin of baked beans.
DeleteIt all sounds very idyllic. Cauliflower is great in a vegetable curry...
ReplyDeleteIt sounds idyllic but in fact it is events like this that bring a community together. They depend on an active group of people and raise a great deal of money but wither away without support.
DeleteThanks for the vegetable curry suggestion - guess what we are having for supper tonight?
I miss old fashioned Harvest Homes, now you see more tins of things that no-one would ever open and very little fresh produce.
ReplyDeleteThe modern fashion for tins and packets for food banks is very well intentioned but makes a rather uninspiring display.The harvest offerings in our church were gifts from gardens and kitchens and raised a significant amount of money for charity in the auction.
DeleteIt's this version of harvest, with it's fresh goods and preserves, that truly celebrates the bounty of the growing season before the onset of winter. I understand the good intentions of food donation ceremonies, but packets, tins and Internationally grown crops, teach nothing about local food supply and the seasons. However with the globalisation of food production, year-round supply and the seeming merging of seasonal weather, the concept of harvest is becoming ever more remote for many people.
ReplyDeleteI agree that food donation ceremonies are not linked to autumn at all. My guess is that 'old fashioned' Harvest festivals will become fashionable again but there is a special pleasure in part of a community where it has always been celebrated.
ReplyDelete