A Fair Feast? A Thanksgiving Reflection

A Fair Feast?The longer I grow into my passion for good food, the more I realize it was pretty much inevitable.  I was raised in the South where hospitality is not just a formality, where you can always smell the kitchen from the street.  My mother is a well-rounded cook with a particular expertise in baking things from scratch.  This doesn’t mean you add fresh ingredients to a mix, this means pancakes require the measuring of baking soda before the buttermilk and the homemade rolls are a day-long process as the yeast has to have time to rise.  Twice.My Sundays and Wednesdays were spent at church where we gathered around the Table on Sundays and the table on Wednesdays.  The luncheons at church on Sunday were a feast for the eyes and tummy – deviled eggs, four different macaroni and cheese varieties, green bean casserole, chicken yumminess, gelatin salads, and curried fruit mixtures.  There were vats of sweet tea and white paper table covers.  We ate ourselves into naptime around round tables while the girls in smocked dresses chased the boys in their penny loafers.  Sometimes the gatherings took place under oak trees in the back of White Bluff or on the oceanfront in St. Simons – church cookouts with chili and hot dogs or barbecues with Granny’s famous slaw.  And more sweet tea.  It’s really no surprise the longer I think about it, that fellowship, hospitality, and ministry are inseparable from a Table of food.As we approach Thanksgiving, I am struck again by the enormous reconciliation that happens around a table in our own American tradition.  In 1621, the Pilgrims, fresh from Europe had been depleted in number from various diseases, and were befriended by Squanto and the Wampanoag tribe.  Squanto taught the Pilgrims, weakened by malnutrition and illness, how to cultivate corn, extract sap from maple trees, catch fish in the rivers and avoid poisonous plants.  After their first successful corn harvest, there was a celebratory meal wherein the pilgrims brought fowl and the Wampanoag brought deer.  Fellowship, food, and joy.  That’s what we anticipate and celebrate at Thanksgiving time.This nostalgic celebration of ours preserves a time of harmony between settlers and Native Americans that was fleeting.  We would rather dwell in the pretty moments of peace and relative plentitude instead of tell the rest of the story, which could put a damper on the mood.  The part of the story which tells of how we got up from the table and started a trajectory that lead to the Trail of Tears.Issues of justice and injustice are underwritten into an uplifting story of the meal in our Thanksgiving holiday.  Just so, potential for great reconciliation as well as surreptitious injustice greets us at every table and every meal in which we partake.  Christian folks gather at the Eucharist table confessing our sin and bringing our hungry, broken selves to the body broken and the blood shed in an ultimate act of reconciliation and hope. In our day-to-day lives, we sit down for meals with our family and ingest injustice when we eat food that was grown and harvested by exploited workers or when we eat food that traveled thousands of miles to reach us, harming our planet on its journey.I have a history of loving tables of food.  America has a history of loving tables of food.  Muslims, Christians, and Jews have a history of loving tables of food.  This thanksgiving, I encourage you to think a little more critically about the reconciliation that happens at tables.  I encourage you to seek healing in the relationships of those you share Thanksgiving feast with; I encourage you to seek healing by choosing local foods that support health of the earth and wholeness of communities; I encourage you to give thanks for the way our Creator warms seeds from the soil to our tables and warms our tables that we may be nourished seeds of joy in this world.  Blessings to you all this holiday season!Love,Kate Buckley *If you are in the Atlanta area and would like to add local seasonal foods to your Thanksgiving Table, here are some ways to do that!Local, pasture-raised turkey (through Sunday, November 20, 2013):White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia http://whiteoakpastures.com/Darby Farms in Monroe, Georgia  http://www.darbyfarmsga.com/Whole Foods, Atlanta  (404) 853-1681Produce (sweet potatoes, radishes, carrots, collards, etc.) and pork, beef, eggs:Grant Park Farmers Market  Sun am 9:30-1:30  http://www.grantparkmarket.org/Morningside Market  Sat am 7:30-11:30  http://www.morningsidemarket.com/Decatur Farmers Market  Sat am 9:00-1:00http://decaturfarmersmarket.com/wordpress/Riverview Farm’s Farm Mobile (stops all over ATL!)  http://www.grassfedcow.com/farmmobile_schedule.html