How to Hold a Samhain Ancestor Feast (Dumb Supper)
My Personal Practice Evolution
Way back in the day, in the late 90s, when I first started officially practicing Paganism, I observed the Wheel of the Year even though I was not Wiccan. I'm not going to go into the history of modern Paganism or the origins of Samhain in this article. But just so we are all on the same page, the Wheel of the Year was introduced through Wicca in the 20th century and is not ancient though many of the 8 sabbats it celebrates get their origins or inspiration from pre-Christian traditions. Samhain, which means "summer's end" was a Celtic harvest festival and is the second harvest festival on the wheel of the year.
I no longer observe the Wheel of the Year, at least not in the sense it exists in Wicca and much of contemporary Paganism. I do, as a death witch, observe the cycles of nature and as such I do observe the solstices and equinoxes. I also observe Beltane (partially because it's my birthday) and Samhain. While I don't see much talk about it today, when I came into Paganism it was common to observe Samhain with what was called a "Dumb Supper." Dumb is an old word for "mute" and this was just the term for a silent super where you honored your departed loved ones and ancestors by having a silent meal in their honor that included place settings for them. Practitioners my have had a couple of place settings for specific departed loved ones and ancestors along with a place setting that was for the ancestors as a whole or they may have had just one place setting dedicated to all departed loved ones and ancestors. I know some practitioners would leave this plate empty and others would put portions of the mean onto the ancestors' plate as an offering.
When I was young and single, I held Dumb Suppers on Samhain. After becoming a mother, and one who included or allowed her children to participate in sabbats, I realized very quickly that a Dumb Supper was not realistic or compatible with kiddos. That is when I started our tradition of the Ancestor Feast instead.
What is an Ancestor Feast?
I'll be honest with you, even though my children are more than old enough now to participate in a Dumb Supper, I'd never go back to hosting Dumb Suppers for Samhain because I absolutely love and look forward to our Ancestor Feast every year.
Since I love it so much, I thought I'd share our tradition in the hopes that it might inspire you. This isn't a super complicated tradition and it doesn't involve any long drawn-out rituals. It does involve knowing at least a little bit about your ancestors and genealogy.
Each year I design a menu for our feast based on recipes passed down through my family line or that are from our genetic lineage. Since I do have children I include foods from my heritage as well as their fathers' heritage. This can make for some chaotic-looking menus as we have vastly different backgrounds. It is a meal from around the world for sure, featuring everything from Depression and Boom era recipes to dishes from Indigenous Americans to Western Europeans, Northern Europeans, to Central Europeans.
The point of the Ancestor Feast is to connect with your ancestors by eating foods that they would have eaten and would have been familiar to them. If you're a history buff and you want recipes that go back farther in history to connect with some of your more distant ancestors check Max Miller's YouTube channel Tasting History, as he does careful and extensive research on historic recipes and shows you how you can recreate them today. But if you're not a history buff or don't want to track down elusive ingredients it's fine to stick with more contemporary recipes that your ancestors of the more recent past would have been familiar with.
Generally speaking, when planning the menu for our feast I try to pick one snack or appetizer, a main course with at least one side, and a dessert. Finding a main course and sides that blend well together can be tricky when I'm trying to touch upon as many cultures of ours as possible but you can keep it simple, this isn't something that needs to be overly complicated and you don't have to have a dish from each and every one of your genetic lineages. Especially if you're someone like me who has very diverse genetic ancestry.
I invite our ancestors to spend the day with us, we like to blend Samhain and Halloween in our family, so the ancestors are invited to dance and sing along as I play Halloween songs for my boys. They are invited to go Trick-or-Treating with us. They are invited to join the boys and I as we prepare all of the food. They are invited to share the meal with us, and of course, they are invited to hear our scary stories and watch scary and Halloween movies with us. During all of this, I discuss our ancestors and cultures with the boys as things come up organically throughout the day and feast.
From My Family to Yours
That is our Ancestor Feast and I hope it provides you with some inspiration for your own Samhain celebrations. Since this article is all about food, I thought I'd end with a recipe that has been passed through several generations of my family. Growing up, I thought everyone ate these, it wasn't until adulthood and moving away from Pennsylvania that I realized this is a regional food that a lot of folks have never even heard of let alone tried. These go faster than anything at any of our family gatherings so I always make a lot. I promise you that making a single dozen of them is NOT enough because in our house a dozen is gone in the blink of an eye.
Pickled (Beet) Eggs
You'll need at least 12 hardboiled eggs.
Boil eggs for 10-15 mins. Put eggs in cold water and crack shells with the handle of a knife. Let eggs cool, then shell.
1 ½ cups beet juice
*if less, add enough water to make 1½ cups
1 can of small round beets
¾ cup water (in addition to any you may have added to juice)
¾ cup vinegar
1 TBS sugar
½ tsp salt
Heat the above ingredients.
Put eggs into the heated pickling juice. I recommend using a large glass jar for this, what I typically do is purchase one of the super big glass jars of dill pickles ahead of time so my boys can eat those and then I clean and save the jar for the express purpose of making pickled eggs. Yes, that's right, we love these so much we have dedicated pickled egg jars.
When cool enough put the lid on the picked egg jar and refrigerate.
Note: My female parental unit found that the eggs turned out best if you put the shelled eggs into the beet juice mixture while it is still VERY hot. Just make sure to have something like a metal spoon in the jar when you poor the hot liquid in to avoid the temperature shock cracking and breaking your glass jar.
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