Harvest Festivals - Eating and Drinking Around the World

There are certain kinds of holidays that most cultures around the world have in common. New years festivals, fertility festivals, and, of course, harvest festivals. For any agrarian culture harvest is an absolutely crucial time of year. It’s the difference between life and death, quite literally. This week, the United States celebrated its own national harvest festival, Thanksgiving. And rather than get into it with the history of the holiday, colonialism, and the like, I figured it would be more fun to look into and list out several harvest festivals from other cultures.

 The New Yam Festival

Yams are not just native to West Africa, but are one of the most important crops in the region. So it makes sense that they would be the focus of a harvest festival. The specific festival I came across was celebrated by the Igbo people, who primarily live in present-day Nigeria and Ghana. The harvest festival takes place during August and September and can last a day or a full week. The festival includes religious rites/offerings, dancing etc. The Igbo diaspora also celebrates this festival around the world.

Mooncake Festival

The mooncake festival, aka the Mid-Autumn festival is a Chinese and Vietnamese harvest festival that falls on the full moon of the eighth month of the Chinese lunar calendar. The festival’s mythological origin comes from the story of Chang’e who drank (or possibly OD-ed) on the elixir of life and became the moon goddess, and Chinese emperors started celebrating it  anywhere from 1000-ish BC (Zhou dynasty) to 900-ish AD (Song dynasty) – a long time regardless. The festival is celebrated around the world with family gatherings, lighting lanterns, and, of course, eating mooncakes.

Lughnasadh

When I first started working on this piece, I’d assumed that Samhain, the Celtic pre-cursor to Halloween, was their harvest festival. Turns out I was wrong. The Celtic harvest festival is called Lughnasadh, after the sun god, Lugh and celebrates Lugh and his mother Tailtiu. The holiday actually takes place about half-way between the summer solstice and the autumn equinox, which is when the harvest would begin and would include funerary games and matchmaking for trial marriages (you could make it permanent or break up after a year-long trial).

Gilroy Garlic Festival

While the United States is no longer an agrarian nation – the majority of Americans have lived in cities since the 1920 – we have plenty of modern-day harvest festivals. Thanksgiving, of course, but also state fairs, and, even more recently, food festivals. And my favorite food festival is Gilroy, California’s Garlic Festival. Held since 1979, the festival celebrates the stinking rose, food, wine, and the local community of Gilroy. People gather and feast, just like any other harvest celebration. The festival occurs at the end of July, which is shortly after garlic is harvested.

Gilroy Garlic Fries - a key part of watching any SF Giants game

Sharing food is a universal human experience. And for agrarian societies, celebrating the harvest with a feast, to thank whatever appropriate deity, bring the community/family together, or just have fun before winter, makes total sense, no matter where you live or what your culture is.

There were many, many other festivals I came across while writing this peace, but those will have to wait for next year. And finally, all the information I wrote is from my research so if I missed something or was off the mark based on your knowledge/personal experience, let me know!