All Saints'

Most people get excited about Halloween but November 1^st, is also an important day in the Christian world. All Saint’s Day is the day after Halloween and has been observed through the centuries with rituals celebrating life and death.

All Saints’ Day is usually a family event where entire families will come out to clean and whitewash the family tombs and bring food for picnics. The tradition continues with placing flowers, plants, and other mementos on the tombs and at the mausoleums of deceased family members. Perhaps the oldest holiday on the Western calendar, it dates back to 837, when Roman Catholics began honoring all saints, known and unknown, on the first day of November.

Rick Bragg writes in the latest issue of Southern Living, about seeing families in New Orleans dressed for church, filing through a cemetery gate with a picnic basket and an Igloo cooler. Later he saw people eating oyster po’boys and drinking root beer in the shade of a crypt. He saw fathers and sons toast grandfathers and great-grandfathers with a clink of Abita bottles. He felt that this was a lovely notion that you will be remembered, no matter what your faith, as long as someone is willing to come to see you.

In the latest issue of ‘Saveur’, there is a great article on Guatemala and how they celebrate All Saints’ Day. The families decorate their relatives’ graves with flowers and candles to guide the spirits back home. Food and drinks are left for souls famished from wandering in the netherworld. Many people stay by the graves, eating and drinking until morning and others take the party elsewhere. At the family’s home there are dishes of food covering the table and the centerpiece is an enormous composed salad—with dozens of ingredients in colorful layers. It is a salad called fiambre , which means “served cold,” and is only eaten in Guatemala on All Saints’ Day. Though its origins are murky, it is thought that families took dozens of little dishes to the cemetery and over time they got mixed together, resulting in this easier-to-carry creation. Fiambre can contain anything, with up to 50 ingredients and takes days to prepare. As the author of the article was leaving the Guatemalan home, one of the women preparing the fiambre said, ”Who know what the dead want?  With fiambre, they can pick their favorite thing.”

So get some good ingredients together and prepare this saintly salad for friends living or dead!

Fiambre

(Guatemalan Composed Salad)

Serves 12-16

¾ cup chopped parsley

½ cup white wine vinegar

2 tbsp. capers, drained

1 tbsp. Dijon mustard

6 scallions, roughly chopped

1 7-oz. jar pimientos, drained

1 clove garlic, sliced thin

1 1” piece ginger, sliced thin

1 cup olive oil

Kosher salt and ground black pepper, to taste

1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts, poached and cut into 1” cubes

1 lb. medium head-on, unpeeled shrimp, boiled

1 lb. peeled Yukon gold potatoes, boiled and halved

8 oz. cooked uncured chorizo sausage, cut into ¼ “ slices

4 oz. green beans, trimmed and boiled until tender

3 oz. salami, cut into ½ “ strips

3 oz. ham, cut into ½ “ strips

1 cup frozen peas

4 medium carrots, cut into ½ inch rounds, boiled until tender

4 ribs celery, cut into ½ inch slices, boiled until tender

1 head cauliflower, cut into florets, boiled until tender

4 medium beets, roasted, peeled, and quartered

1 small head green leaf lettuce, leaves separated

1 small head red leaf lettuce, leaves separated

8 oz. farmer’s cheese or feta

3 oz. mini gherkins, drained

3 oz. Spanish olives, pitted

5 radishes, quartered

4 boiled eggs, quartered

Puree ½ cup parsley, vinegar, capers, mustard, scallions, pimientos, garlic, and ginger in a blender.

Drizzle in oil until emulsified; season with salt and pepper and set vinaigrette aside. Toss chicken, shrimp, potatoes, chorizo, green beans, salami, ham, peas, carrots, celery, and cauliflower with ¾ cup vinaigrette in a bowl.

Toss beets with ¼ cup vinaigrette in another bowl. Cover both bowls; chill 30 minutes to blend flavors. Arrange lettuce on bottom of a large platter; top with marinated meats and vegetables. Garnish with beets, cheese, gherkins, olives, radishes, and eggs. Sprinkle with remaining parsley.

If you haven’t had All Saints’ as a part of your family traditions, think about taking the family to the graves of the ancestors and introduce the children to the past members of the family and share some food with them as well.

The Stewart family cemetery at Holly Grove---in need of a clean up for All Saints'