Catholic Activity: Annunciation Day Food Ideas

Here are some food ideas for the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25, especially if it falls during Lent.

DIRECTIONS

March 25 forecasts the most important and blessed event in Church history. To many of us it is the assurance that, as the seasons follow each other in orderly procession, so Christmas, the birthday of Jesus, is slowly but surely on its way. The year is a great circle of days, and imaginative homemakers throughout the world have done modest but sincere homage to Annunciation Day by serving cakes, coffee rings, or cookies baked in wreath shapes. There is no reason why the wreath form should not be carried out in other foods too. A springtime supper (or luncheon) salad made in a ring mold would be completely appropriate.

March 25, Annunciation Day, sometimes called Lady Day, celebrates the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the day when the Angel Gabriel appeared to Our Lady and told her that she was to be the mother of a son called Jesus, the Savior of the world. (See recipes for Jellied Macaroni Ring and Luscious Coffee Ring.)

Occasionally this feast day occurs during the Lenten season. When it does we might recall that some beautiful words from the Epistle of the Mass on Assumption Day, another feast day dedicated to Mary, call her "exalted like a cedar in Libanus, a cypress tree on Mt. Sion, a palm in Cades, a rose plant in Jericho; a fair olive tree by the water, a sweet smell like cinnamon and aromatic balm, a sweet odor like the best myrrh." What, then, could be more appropriate than spicy cookies, wafting their fragrance through the house as they bake?

Activity Source: Cook's Blessings, The by Demetria Taylor, Random House, New York, 1965