Epiphany is celebrated 12 days after Christmas on 6th January (or January 19th for some Orthodox Church who have Christmas on 7th January) and is the time when Christians remember the Wise Men (also sometimes called the Three Kings) who visited Jesus.
Epiphany is also when some Churches remember when Jesus was Baptised, when he was about 30, and started to teach people about God. Epiphany means ‘revelation’ and both the visit of the Wise Men and his Baptism are important times when Jesus was ‘revealed’ to be very important.
Read more at https://www.whychristmas.com/customs/epiphany.shtml.
Celebrate with a Feast!
I couldn’t find any specific dinner foods relating to Epiphany (other than cakes, pickled cabbage, and sauerkraut juice (yuk!)), so I decided upon a nice gumbo recipe. Why gumbo? The Epiphany season ends with Mardi Gras, which makes me think of New Orleans, which is famous for its gumbo. Besides, it will be good to have the kids try gumbo for the first time!
We are going to try this recipe:
Good New Orleans Creole Gumbo – I’m hoping it’s not too spicy and the kids will like it!!
Bread was always found at a feast in ancient days, so we will make some homemade bread to go along with the gumbo.
“Epiphany, known as the holiday of light, finds representation with a dish of oranges, blood oranges, clementines or tangerines on the dinner table.”
That’s easy enough – we have a huge bag of Cuties in the frig, so I will add that to the table.
“Because the Magi haled from the Orient, spicy cake is a traditional Epiphany staple. It is customary to bake the Epiphany cake, or king cake, with a bean or small trinket hidden inside. Whomever receives the slice containing the bean is named king of the feast. Sometimes the baker hides two trinkets inside the cake: one for the king and another for the queen. European recipes for Epiphany cake vary from almond-paste-filled pastries to icing-layered confections.”
Mardi Gras King Cake – I like the idea of using a BEAN instead of a plastic baby…there’s something about baking plastic inside a cake and serving it to my children. Toxins, anyone?
