Lammas/Lughnasadh/Etc.

[Dez]

What do you guys like to do for this one?

Last year right about now I was absolutely in awe about how beautiful the grain fields here were. I kept wanting to put up wheat and poppy imagery. I never really tied that to what folks on here were talking about with Lammas, especially because baking bread, one of the most commonly mentioned things people do, is something I do almost every week, making in not quite a special event.

[Amber]

Re: Lammas/Lughnasadh/Etc.

Well with it being the first of the harvest festivals, I like to do something to honor the land and the offerings it has given us. Summer fruits are usually in full swing by then along with most veggies. So I like to make nice fruit dishes and veggie dishes at that time.

[DanieMarie]

Re: Lammas/Lughnasadh/Etc.

Not sure yet....my parents are here but leave for Ireland the day before. I would have liked if they were here (or at least my mom) because my mom is so supportive of my beliefs and usually I celebrate alone, but she would have joined in.

Anyway it's a Saturday so I'm off. I think I'll just do something simple, like give thanks to my garden in some way.

[Tylluan Penry]

Re: Lammas/Lughnasadh/Etc.

The festival is definitely connected with food as far as I'm concerned (but then I'm like that ) Like you, DR, I bake bread most days, but I do try to save a special recipe or well decorated loaf for this festival. Bread with its golden colour looks especially effective if you paint the crust with food colouring.... maybe make a round loaf and paint it with a circlet of poppies around the outside? Looks magical!

[Gardenia]

Re: Lammas/Lughnasadh/Etc.

I also bake bread often enough, but I try to make the Lammas baking a special event. I bake a small, decorated loaf, and turn the whole act into a meditation of sorts. In the late afternoon (the time of day I associate with Lammas) I go outside with my loaf and some wine, and as eat and drink and really think about the sacrifices in nature and the life cycle. A time to be thankful for summer at the peak of the season, the abundance it brings, but also to recognize the coming fall and winter.
I usually like to do this at a near by stream where I can leave some bread and pour some wine as an offering. A bit of give and take...

Later in the evening I'll have a small fire and do a real dinner with all sorts of seasonal food. Corn is big near me, so I like to have corn bread and roast corn, with other fresh local veggies, and maybe some pasta. Fresh berries for dessert, maybe with some corn or bread pudding.

[Amber]

Re: Lammas/Lughnasadh/Etc.

The baking special bread sounds like a great Idea! I'm not a baker but I really think I will try that this year. My HPS in my mother coven always did the baking, but now that I have my own coven I guess its high time I learned LOL

[Dez]

Re: Lammas/Lughnasadh/Etc.

Tylluan, that's a lovely way to go about that!

[DanieMarie]

Re: Lammas/Lughnasadh/Etc.

Baking does sound fun. I grow lavender and many other herbs in my garden so maybe an herb spelt bread (I am about 75% sure I'm allergic to wheat now).

[Tylluan Penry]

Re: Lammas/Lughnasadh/Etc.

Thank you DR. Another effective decoration is with purple and green food colouring to draw on grapes and grapes leaves. Also you can cut out the leaf or petal shapes (roll them out in thin bread dough, just as you would with biscuit/cookie dough). You can paint them afterwards for extra effect.

Another thing that is very effective is to make the bread itself look like a basket. I usually used a large quiche dish for this, rolled out a thin layer of bread dough in a circle for the base, and made a long, thin plait to fit inside around the edges (don't forget to grease the dish well otherwise the bread won't slip out easily afterwards). Then I made much smaller 'cottage loaf' buns to go inside (this is where you use two balls of dough, the smaller one on top, you dip the end of a wooden spoon in flour and press it down hard into the top of the smaller ball, it fastens the two together.) Leave it to prove/rise again.
Then when it's baked you look as though you have a basket of bread, made of bread, with a lot of smaller loaves inside it. For a very large quiche dish, you need to make the bread dough with about 3 pounds/1.5kg of strong flour.

Danie Marie - are you allergic to wheat or to gluten? I only ask because I know spelt has gluten in it and causes problems for coeliacs.

[DanieMarie]

Re: Lammas/Lughnasadh/Etc.

It seems to just be wheat. I haven't done the test yet but when I eat wheat my throat swells up and when I eat spelt or rye (even though they have gluten in them) it doesn't. I think it's an allergy issue and most of the time gluten is an intolerance...the difference being that an allergy is an autoimmune response and an intolerance is a lack of ability to process the food. Apparently it is quite possible to be allergic to wheat and not other gluten-containing grains, because wheat has a different protein from even spelt, its ancestor, and often when you have food allergies, it's the protein that causes it.

I'm still going to get tested though. Better to know I think!

[Tylluan Penry]

Re: Lammas/Lughnasadh/Etc.

Thanks for explaining DM... have you ever tried Kamut (sometimes written Kumat) flour? It originated in ancient Egypt - makes amazing bread, very golden and fragrant. It can also be successully combined 50/50 with other, lighter flours.

[Raven_Rin]

http://ravenrinspagannest.blogspot.c...ast-ideas.html Brightest Blessings.

[thalassa]

Re: Lammas/Lughnasadh/Etc.

sometimes I like to check out the blogosphere when I need ideas, this one from Pagan Dad is pretty good.

[Dez]

Re: Lammas/Lughnasadh/Etc.

I hadn't though of that, Thal...good link, thanks!