The Wicca Cookbook, Second Edition: Recipes, Ritual, and Lore - Softcover

Wood, Jamie; Seefeldt, Tara

 
9781587611049: The Wicca Cookbook, Second Edition: Recipes, Ritual, and Lore
Softcover
ISBN 10: 158761104X ISBN 13: 9781587611049
Verlag: Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed, 2010

Inhaltsangabe

The spiritual tenets of Wicca are steeped in an inherent reverence for nature and stewardship of the environment. In fact, Wiccan practitioners have been living—and cooking—green since ancient times. In the decade since the first edition of the The Wicca Cookbook cast its spell over culinary history buffs and adventurous cooks everywhere, many readers have asked “What makes a cookbook Wiccan?” The tenth anniversary edition answers that question and more, bringing fresh dimensions to this heady witches’ brew with new rituals and delicious recipes. 

More than 100 dishes, many historically authentic, all meticulously researched, emphasize the use of organic ingredients at their seasonal peak and celebrate all the major pagan holidays: enjoy Stuffed Nasturtiums, Goddess Athena Pitas, and Deva Saffron Bread for the Spring Equinox; serve Elder Flower Chicken, Lilith’s Lily Fair Soup, and Wild Woman White Sage Jelly during the Summer Solstice; and Cupid’s Cold Slaw, Imbolc Moon Cookies, and Snowflake Cakes make delightful Candlemas treats. Nature-honoring dishes, eco-friendly living tips, and an inclusive message of spirituality make The Wicca Cookbook a unique contribution to the culinary world and a magickal tribute to the pagan spirit.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

JAMIE WOOD has been a practitioner and teacher of Wicca and other earth-based spiritual practices since 1990. She is the author of The Wiccan Herbal, The Teen Spell Book, and The Enchanted Diary. Also a novelist of young adult fiction, Jamie lives and works in southern California. 

TARA SEEFELDT is a graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles in medieval history and has been a practicing Wiccan since 1985. She lives and teaches in Arizona.

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INTRODUCTION
 
According to ancient earth-based traditions, a deep-seated spirituality has always been a part of food preparation. When cooking is combined with a ceremonial significance, it transforms an ordinary task into an extraordinary connection with the Divine Source. Without requiring any commitment to Wicca and its beliefs, The Wicca Cookbook offers ways to celebrate and honor the divinity in nature and each of us.

Wicca, also known as Witchcraft, the Craft, or simply the Old Religion, is a nature-based religion, close in ideology to Native American and shamanistic traditions. As an earth-centered religion, its origins predate Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Wicca comes from the Saxon root wicce, loosely translated as “wise” or “to bend or shape the unseen forces.” The knowledge of Wicca is derived from the movement of the sun, moon, and stars, and the cycles of the seasons.

No hard and fast rules exist in Wicca. It is not based on a degree or a set of beliefs but rather on a practice of aligning oneself with the natural forces of life. Wiccans honor and celebrate the female energy known as the Goddess in Her triple reflection of the Maiden, Mother, and Crone. Her Consort, the male energy known as the God, Hunter, or Horned One, completes the total being of the Divine Source. Emphasis is placed on personal experience and a tolerance of other paths and lifeways. Wiccans recognize the innate presence of divinity in the natural world, each individual, and the cycle of the seasons.

Within Wicca are eight sabbats, each holding a sacrosanct place on the Great Solar Wheel of the Year, also known as the Mandala of Nature. The sabbats give way to each other like the changing of the seasons. Each sabbat is celebrated with corresponding symbols, traditional foods, herbs, and the ritual invocation of Divine power through the creation of sacred space.

The Wicca Cookbook is divided into these nature-based festivals. Each recipe is preceded with a hallowed meaning, the ingredients’ therapeutic value, historical significance, or a spell or ritual that you can perform in conjunction with the food preparation. Great value is placed on personal creativity, poetry, and the artful integration of different myths and ritual elements. Therefore, you are encouraged to add to or create a ceremony or meditation that reflects your feelings and understanding.

The recipes include many edible flowers and medicinal herbs, whose use dates back to the Middle Ages and even earlier, when ancient people included them in recipes as well as used them for their healing and medicinal properties. Except for those few that were grown locally, most herbs were quite costly in the Middle Ages and protected with tenacity. Only the lady of the household held the key to the herb cabinet, since the servants were not to be trusted with such a precious commodity. The village midwife held the secrets to the curative uses of the flowers and herbs and the lore was then passed down through the generations.

Meals were heavily spiced to add flavor to otherwise bland food and in an attempt to cover up the unsavory taste of decaying food. Flowers and herbs were also used in dishes to impart both flavor and beneficial medicinal effects. The fragrances and textures of herbs and flowers delighted the senses. Their importance can be seen in the many treatises on gardening that have survived from the Middle Ages. Eighty-six plants are listed in a fifteenth-century treatise on gardening, and the author clearly indicates that he could have added more. Herbs have long been considered essential for a full and happy life.

Each flower and herb possesses unique characteristics that not only enhance the flavor but also add a sacred quality that imparts the Divine in every dish. By inviting Mother Nature into your dishes, you welcome the flow of Divine spirituality. In this cookbook, herbs and flowers from the Mother’s garden are used in recipes during sabbats that coincide with their seasonal peak. This alignment increases the spiritual benefit of the recipe and reflects the Universe’s perfect rhythm. Eating foods at their prescribed times not only offers more nutrients, it also ensures heightened medicinal potency.

You may either grow your own herbs and edible flowers or purchase them. A delightful kitchen herb garden conveys the message of Divine abundance. It reminds one of the wealth that is available to us all in the natural world. The recipes in The Wicca Cookbook call for fresh herbs, but in most cases you may substitute dried ones. When substituting dried herbs for fresh ones, halve the required measurement of fresh herbs to get the desired amount of herbs. You may even choose to grow your own herbs and dry them for your culinary purposes. (See Growing and Using Herbs, beginning on page 23, for suggestions on harvesting, drying, and preserving herbs.) If you do not have the time or means to cultivate your own garden, you can obtain medicinal herbs from various seed and nursery companies that specialize in growing herbs. In addition, we encourage you to grow flowers specifically for culinary purposes. If this is not possible, be sure to purchase flowers that are organically grown and free of pesticides.

Cook with as many whole foods as you can obtain. The way in which you create the recipes will reflect your personal spirituality and love. This individuality is vitally important in Wicca. So create and enjoy! Wicca adores and praises our uniqueness. The Old Religion revels in individualism, recognizing that every one of us is a perfect child of the Universe and created from the same Divine Source. This Divinity is both male and female; however, to reestablish our connection with the earth and the Mother energy and since the feminine power is considered the beginning of all creation, the place from which all life originates, Wiccans often say Mother or Goddess when referring to the Divine Source. We always remain a part of that source, just as the rays of sunshine never leave the sun. “We have not left that Source to enter a body and die,” explains A Course in Miracles. We are a life, a spirit having a body for a time, not a body having a life. As such, we each have something miraculous and Divine to offer. Today too many people do not recognize the Divine in everything and everyone. They only see the Divine in extraordinary events, miracles not to be expected every day, whereas Wiccans know magic is commonplace and happens throughout the natural world, manifesting in the smallest acts from hour to hour, day to day, season to season.

Wiccans take part in ceremonies and rituals as a means of performing white magic for healing purposes. White magic is positive and used only to promote good and healing. The innate good within Wiccan magic transforms negativity, allowing the old to die and make room for the new. The cyclical change of the seasons in nature and human life is seen as the essential erotic dance of life, death, and rebirth. New growth comes from death and destruction of old ideas, past pain, and bad habits, just as the greenest plants grow best from a pile of compost.

Each ceremony is as unique as the Wiccan performing it. Some ritual items are common to almost every Wiccan tradition, such as the athame (ritual knife) and chalice (ritual cup). Other tools that you may want to incorporate into your realm of magic could include bells, a Book of Shadows (a secret diary of spells, rituals, or dreams), a besom (broom), a burin (engraving tool), candles, cauldrons, cords, crystals, drums, incense, jewelry, special plates, pentacles, rattles, rune stones, scourges, statues, swords, staves, tarot cards, and wands. But it will be your own personality that adds a unique dimension...

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Verlag
Clarkson Potter/Ten Speed
Erscheinungsdatum
2010
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
158761104X
ISBN 13 
9781587611049
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
224
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Ten Speed Press
https://crownpublishing.com/

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