Holiday Rituals: What Our Cooking Says About Us

For many people, cooking or baking is a staple of the fall and winter holiday season. Recipes passed down through generations are often followed or recreated to make meals specifically associated with this time of the year. But where do these habits and traditions come from? And what do they say about human culture?

Joanna Smith, a UNC doctoral student studying religion and its philosophies, recently spoke with 97.9 The Hill’s Aaron Keck about these cooking rituals. She said many of the food-based traditions Americans have are based around religion.

“Looking at meal-based rituals, like Thanksgiving, Hanukkah and Christmas celebrations,” she said, “what makes that meal different from other meals? For some people, there’s a very explicitly religious answer to that: it’s about specific prayers being said in the right order, it’s about the food being prepared to certain ritual guidelines.

“But for many folks,” Smith added, “it’s about a specific group of people being there or specific foods being cooked or about the intention that everyone is bringing to the table.”

Using these gatherings and celebrations reinforces many people’s emotions or perspectives around such holidays as distinct dates on a repeating calendar. Smith said this repetition aids in shaping what people recognize or rely on as tradition, meaning everyone’s different experiences can create many different rituals.

“The way we celebrate holidays is so individual and, in America specifically, I think it reflects an astonishing diversity,” she said. “If you ask ten people what a Christmas Eve meal looks like, you’re going to get ten dramatically different answers. I’m generally a little suspicious of the idea of America as a ‘melting pot,’ I think that can cover up a lot of sins. But when we look at food, we do see this really captivating diversity reflecting back.”

This holiday season, however, many people’s traditions may be more interrupted than usual. With the COVID-19 pandemic continuing at a worse rate than earlier in 2020, public health and government officials are urging residents to limit travel, gather in much smaller groups and remain socially distant.

Smith said the pandemic presents an intriguing chance to examine or test philosophies around the holidays and rituals.

“With this, of course, being a holiday season like no other,” she said, “I’ve been finding myself asking increasingly ‘what makes those rituals efficacious,’ especially if we can’t have those people gathered around the table we expect to see.”

What Smith has found, she said, is many people finding ways to continue these traditions. With the rise of technology, sharing moments with meaningful people from afar has become even easier. But Smith said, especially with holidays recipes or certain meals, people already use food as a way to connect with those who are not there in-person.

“Even this year,” she described, “I’ve heard of friends doing this: of cooking for themselves, their wife, their little solo Thanksgiving. [Like] cooking their mom’s cassoulet recipe, making their aunt’s sweet potato pie…and I think food is still a beautiful way to bridge those distances with flavor, with smell and with the ritual process of cooking.”

Because holidays are such fixed points on the calendar, Smith said she hopes when the pandemic is fully past us, society will find a way to hold more spontaneous celebrations and gatherings throughout the year.

“I hope that when there is a vaccine, when things feel resolved,” she said, “that we, in our own little private ways, are able to celebrate a spontaneous holiday.”

“But,” Smith added, “I’m also really struck by how holidays that are set on the calendar, that are going to happen whether it’s a great year or terrible year, are also moments where we can see a lot of resilience.”

Photo via Craig Adderley.

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Holiday Rituals: What Our Cooking Says About Us

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