Yesterday was Mother’s Day, originally Mothering Sunday, and I had a lovely day! Mothering Sunday is the fourth Sunday after Lent, which is the forty days leading up to Easter. Lent is when Christians fast by giving up things they would usually enjoy, favourite items such as chocolate or cake, or meat, preparing themselves for Easter. So the fourth Sunday in Lent was originally the day that traditionally people would return to their mother church when they worked away from their home parish. I guess these would be mostly women who were in service, and men who were agricultural workers – but this evolved into the return to family and their mums.
So now Mother’s Day is a lovely way to celebrate and thank mothers, as well as having religious significance,, and it has been adopted as a non-religious celebration for mums in other countries including Australia, USA, Canada, Germany, China and Japan on the second Monday in May. Yesterday I was woken by my son with a lovely gift, a cookery book of recipes from one of my favourite eating experiences – the fabulous and various dishes of mezze.
“Mezze – small plates to share – dips, salads, pastries, sweets“. It’s by Ghillie Başan with gorgeous photos by Jan Baldwin.
Mezze is an ancient tradition, enjoyed by the Greeks, Romans, medieval Arabs and Ottoman Turks, and is the heart and soul of modern culinary life in the Middle East. The word meze (mezze in Turkey and mazza in Syria and Lebanon) is thought to have derived from the Persian maza meaning taste’ or ‘relish’ and was designed to be savoured alongside tea, wine, beer, or a yoghurt drink, with the aim of pleasing the palate, not to fill the belly. It is a relaxing custom that can be enjoyed at any time of the day as an appetiser, snack or as a buffet spread, served in small quantities at a leisurely pace.
I’m going to enjoy following these recipes and making various dishes, and then of course, sharing and eating what I’ve made! There are sections of cold and also hot mezze, of sweet mezze and after mezze – honey raki, Moroccan mint tea, Turkish coffee and Lebanese coffee with cardamom.
My daughter had other plans to celebrate my special day, we went for a picnic, despite it being a rather grey day. She had been to collect a box of Mother’s Day delights from our favourite cafe, Parkside Cafe in Locking, sandwiches, a cream tea, cakes, crisps, biscuits, and my favourite – coleslaw! Parkside Café really do make the best ever coleslaw! We went to Salthouse Fields in Clevedon, just up the coast from where we live, and although the sky had come over grey and there was a chill in the air, we spread our picnic blanket and dived into our picnic box! What a wonderful treat, I love picnics so what a great way to celebrate! Picnic mostly consumed (there was so much, such a generous amount) that we had enough to pack up to enjoy later, and as a couple of raindrops plopped down we folded the blanket and hurried back to the car. Our celebration wasn’t over, we now went to a local garden centre and spent and hour and more there, wandering around, looking at garden furniture and plants, thankful that we had arrived before the torrential rain arrived!!
I had a really lovely and memorable Mother’s Day, and very different! My husband would have taken me to the pub, but the inclement weather deterred us, so I had a glass of wine at home, and he had a Guinness!
Lois Elsden 