Epiphany: Chalking It Up

Today at Haygood we celebrated Epiphany. Epiphany (technically January 6) is notable in our house as the day that we can first make King Cake. But it's not the entire significance of the day, and this morning at the church service we were introduced to a new tradition (new for me, anyway), of blessing the house for the new year.

We got a piece of white chalk to bring home and write about our door "20 + C + M + B + 12." The first number indicates the century since Christ's birth, the letters are the initials of the names of the Magi, Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar, and the last number is the year. The numbers and letters are separated by crosses. The letters can also stand for Christus mansionem benedicat - may Christ bless this house.

Since this morning, I've learned that this is traditional in some places in Europe. I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to write it inside or outside, so I decided to do both. And the white chalk didn't show on the light painted surfaces above the door, so I used a piece of pink sidewalk chalk instead. Now I've got the chalk blessing above my front door and a mezuza, left by the previous owners of my house, still on the frame of the back door.

If only I had time to take down the Christmas tree and make a King Cake, I would feel like I was ready for the season. But for today, I'll have to settle for chalk markings above the door.

Shrove Tuesday

Last week, I had dinner at a restaurant after a long day at a meeting.  My table included a couple of co-workers, a woman from Luxembourg, and a woman from Brazil.  The conversation about Brazil turned to Carnival, which led to a discussion about how it was celebrated in other countries.  I said that in Louisiana they celebrated Mardi Gras, but in the rest of the country, I didn't know that people did too much, but that eating pancakes on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday was traditional.  As I said it, I knew how ridiculous it sounded - there's Carnival, there's Mardi Gras, and there's the rest of us, having pancakes for supper.  (I told Sarah that I thought the "Shrove" in "Shrove Tuesday" was Old English for "pancakes," but that's not actually true.)

But I also told them that we make King Cake at my house.  I don't remember exactly how or when we started doing this (the recipe we use was printed from the web in February 2007, so probably then) but it's a tradition we like in our family, now.  You can only make it between January 6 and up until the day before Ash Wednesday.  I told them about the weekend day - it must have been in 2007 - I dragged Iain all over Atlanta, trying to find a porcelain baby to cook inside the cake.  I finally gave up and bought a six pack of plastic babies at Michael's, and put one in the cake after it was was baked and had cooled.

Nadia from Luxembourg said this sounded a little like the traditional cake that she associated with Christmas, where there was a special cake with an item in it, and if you got the slice with the item, you got to wear a paper crown and were king or queen for the day.  If you believe what you find on line, that is part of the same tradition, but somewhere along the line we got to have more than one cake over the months preceeding Lent and a pound of cream cheese filling got added.  (Later, when we swapped recipes, she told us that she had been surprised to learn that the king cake of her childhood actually was supposed to be served only on Epiphany, which made the linkage even stronger.)

So Monday night, my friend Suzette was in town, and we made jambalaya and the Last King Cake of 2011.  Suzette put on the icing and the colored sugar while I set the table and put the finishing touches on the jambalaya.  After dinner we cut it, and the six of us ate most of it, but we sent Suzette back to her hotel with a slice on a paper plate for breakfast, and the next day - Shrove Tuesday - we finished it up.  By Tuesday night, it was all gone.  No more King Cake til next year.

I had struggled a little, over dinner the week before, explaining why we had adopted this particular tradition in my household.  We're not from Louisiana and I don't think I'd heard of King Cake til someone brought one to work years ago.  It's not just that it's delicious (which it is).  Most of us no longer grow or hunt for our own food, and we make our living in ways where we are isolated from the rhythms of seasons and tides; the seasons of our work lives revolve around fiscal years and procurement deadlines, not winter solstice, the first signs of spring, or the harvest.  But traditions feel right - they make for warm and comfortable memories, and special celebrations and dinner with friends and family - and I am only two generations removed from the farm; for most of human history, if the animals didn't come back for the rains didn't come, we starved.

So sometime next December, we'll start anticipating the next King Cake, and we'll make one sometime soon after January 6. 

And on Tuesday night, Sarah and Iain and I had pancakes.