[Christine] It’s that time again! We are marking December with a look at some stories plucked from history that center on the myriad holidays that occur at this time of the year. Get cozy and join us for our last episode of 2023! Hey everyone, Christine here. It’s our last episode of 2023 and we are once again celebrating with a look at the history surrounding the end-of-the-year holidays.
For my part, after a brief detour into Christmas-themed poetry last year, I have gone back to trawling the newspapers of the past. This time, I pulled something from the National Intelligencer out of Washington, DC, from December 25, 1866, and someone at that paper really liked what I found because I quickly learned the paper published a very similar article at least one other year, too. It reads a bit like a stream of consciousness about Christmas.
Published on Christmas day it begins with the wordy declaration that “Santa Claus, whose traditional budget of all good things, his journey with it through the air, and descent down all chimneys are radiant visions of childhood, which follow us into maturity and age, has come again and replenished the stocking…” So, imagine if you will, that it is Christmas morning in the mid-1860s and if you are the sort who celebrates Christmas like I do, Santa has visited your home, and now you’re ready
to read the paper and learn about Christmas around the world. As always, I must add the disclaimer that I cannot speak for the veracity of these alleged traditions, but I can say that they were pitched as valid and truthful in the National Intelligencer in the 1860s. If you do or know anyone who does any of the things I’m about to mention, let us know!
Here are my favorite parts of this article: In Ireland, apparently, a sieve of oats was placed in a high location with a big candle and then twelve other candles around it to symbolize Jesus and the twelve apostles as lights in the world. The author then says that over in England, in Gloucestershire they do a variation of this with one big fire in the center and 12 smaller ones around it.
In my opinion, however, what we are told happens in Staffordshire actually makes the most sense for a Christmas tradition. There, they keep to lighting just one fire, as an emblem of the star that traditionally led the magi, or the three wise men, to Jesus’ birthplace in Bethlehem. All these fires probably kept people warm too. The article includes what it calls the “earliest legend” of the appearance of Santa Claus, attributing the name to the Dutch but the legend to the Italians.
It was very strange and not something I had ever heard before. It essentially boiled down to that a poor Italian shoemaker was praying to St. Nicholas for help (that’s the saint associated with Santa Claus). A man who mocked him ended up losing the money he and an accomplice illegally gained from others, to the Italian shoemaker.
This occurs through a very bizarre event that includes secret money being sewn into a duck, the jerk man’s wife being antisemitic and refusing to accept the duck from her husband’s accomplice, who happens to be a Jewish man, and their comeuppance being that the antisemitic wife gets rid of the duck, which ends up with the prayer-loving shoemaker. The shoemaker finds the money in the duck and decides his prayers have been answered.
I was so confused by the existence of this legend that I asked multiple people I know who are big Christmas fans if they had ever heard of it, everyone said they had not, and we were all puzzled together. But, to move on. My interest was particularly piqued by discussion of the yule log and yule goat (yes, I said yule goat) traditions that allegedly occur in Norway, Sweden, and the North of England.
Although nowadays when people say ‘Yule Log’ where I live it usually makes people think either of a chocolate roll cake or, more likely, a television or YouTube channel that shows looping video of a crackling fireplace while holiday music plays in the background, this is a different sort of yule log. It does involve taking a log and putting it in a fireplace, where it is burned on Christmas Eve. Makes sense. It’s the ancestor of the digital version done today.
However, the part that I didn’t know about was that it was apparently considered to ‘acquire healing powers’ through this process of burning on the holy night. Once that was done, the coals would be collected and saved to be worn throughout the year as “a talisman against disease and danger.” You sure don’t get a protective talisman from streaming a YouTube log while it plays ‘Last Christmas.’ The yule goat also apparently could bring you goodness.
This was a “fine cake, baked very hard, and bearing the impress of a goat’s head.” It is supposed to be on display in the home over the Christmas holidays and, if you want the goodness I mentioned, you would keep it for months. Then, when spring arrives, well, “man and maid servant, and beast” because I guess animals need this too, each took a cake on their first day returning to the fields and it would ensure they had a “bounteous harvest.”
I hope no one tried to eat it though, sounds like that would lead to a bounteous stomach cramp bout, and no one wants that. But what I do want is to wish you all the happiest of holiday seasons and thank you for a fabulous 10th anniversary year. You have filled us with joy, and just think, without you and my need to research for your benefit, I might never have known that I need to make a cake that looks like a goat head this month.
[Kristin] Hello Footnoting History friends, it’s Kristin back with a little bit of Hanukkah history for you. There are a million things I love about Hanukkah: the pretty lights for one, an excuse to eat fried food for another – the latkes and the donuts – you know, give me potatoes and fried dough and I’m pretty much good to go. But there’s also the gelt – and mostly today, it’s chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil. Look for it at the grocery store check-out line, it’s usually there.
And while I wouldn’t say it’s generally quality chocolate, it’s still chocolate. There is a tradition dating back to at least the 17th-century of, during Hanukkah, giving money to the poor, to teachers (who, hey, we’re often poor too), and other community workers. There are also traditions where on certain nights of Hanukkah, you get money as a gift.
Gelt is a Germanic-derived word for “money” or “gold,” and that’s also often what you use to gamble with when you’re playing with the dreidel on Hanukkah. A dreidel is this four-sided top that you spin – and on each side, there’s a Hebrew
a Nun (the N), the gimel (the G), the hei (one of the H sounds), and a shin (an “SH” sound) – and for each letter the top lands on when it stops spinning, there’s a consequence. Nuns get nothing, gimels get everything in the pot, hei’s get half, and if you spin a shin, you have to add a piece of your gelt to the pot. Those are the general rules of the game. Dreidles are one just one of the games that Jews play during Hanukkah and it’s been around for a pretty long time.
Hanukkah isn’t an observance – though religious – that is solely observed in a synagogue. There are services, but it’s very much a “home” celebration. And what’s awesome about Hanukkah is that you’re not supposed to be working or studying (much), it’s about relaxation and enjoyment. So, people play games. Spinning tops themselves are a very old pass time – ancient Greeks and Romans had them, medieval English and Irish people had them.
In medieval German lands, the spinning top was added to Hanukkah celebrations and by the 19th century it was really popular all over Europe and in the United States. Similar to “gelt,” the word dreidel itself is Germanic/Yiddish in origin – “dreihen” means “to spin”. And the Hebrew letters that were adapted to the game are also related to German: N – is “nisht” (or in German, nothing), G – is “gantz” or “all,” H – is “halb” or “half,” and S – is “shtel” or “put.”
(I am sure Lucy could pronounce all of these much better than I just did, but hey, I tried.) People made this into an acrostic that stood for “Nes gadol hayah sham” – “A great miracle happened here” – referring to the miracle of the oil lasting 8 nights on Judah Maccabees’ triumphant return to the Temple in Jerusalem – and people did also have a mystical interpretation of the letters where Nun – is for nefesh or soul, Gimel
– is for guf or body, Shin – is for sekhel or mind (there are two Hebrew letters that are S sounds – shin has a dot on it and is the “sh” but without the dot, it’s just an “s” sound and the dots are relatively modern additions to Hebrew to aid with reading) - all together these mystical letters are hakot – the “h” – and they are all the characteristics of a human. There are also mystical, numerical meanings attached to the letters but most people today just do the gambling thing.
Or get novelty dreidels to decorate their houses. At least that’s what I do. There are many stories of people playing with dreidels on Hanukkah and this particular story that I’ll read comes from Svislovitz, which is today in Belarus. In 1929, when Shmarya Levin wrote this recollection, Svislovitz was in Poland.
[And this is pretty much one long, big quote, with a few festive interjections from me.]
“The chief preparation for the Festival of the Maccabees [he means Hanukkah] – at least as far as the youngsters were concerned – consisted in the making of the tiny leaden tops, four-sided, with a grip protruding at the upper end – the traditional game for this festival. The making of leaden tops was no easy enterprise, [yeah, and no kidding, just wait for this you guys, it’s kinda intense] … My brother Meyer was one of the principal manufacturers.
The mold was made of four pieces of wood, one for each side, and within the mold had to be cut out … the four Hebrew letters which appeared in rotation on the sides of the tops … above and below the mold tapered off into thin lines, to make the grip and
then the mold was tied together with cord, and molten lead was poured in from above.
[And just … damnnnnnn, Meyer, that is hardcore.]
It had to be done quickly, because the spoon was of some alloy which melted easily. It had to be done skillfully, too, or else some of the lead would be poured out over the fingers which were holding the mold. [Um, yeah] And more than one boy would be seen round the festival, carrying a bandaged hand as evidence of his clumsiness. With these tops we played a special game which resembles American put-and-take.
[And I had to look that one up, it’s pretty much the dreidel thing.]
As a rule we played for the fun of it; but sometimes we played for money. And this was our introduction to gambling games, later concentrated in cards.” So, talk about high stakes, amiright. Please do not try to make your own dreidel out of molten lead. That’s just a holiday tip from me to you. You can find dreidels a million other places. And there are many examples of dreidels that have survived the centuries and many different artistic interpretations.
The Jewish Museum in New York City has a few on display from the 18th and 19th centuries and you can view some of them online. There’s also a whole Dreidel Museum in Jerusalem, though those ones are a little more modern. There sadly aren’t too many that survived WWII, but the game itself has survived the years – give it a try this year if you’ve never played. And Happy Holidays, Footnoters. [Josh] What’s up, Footnoters, it’s Josh, ready to celebrate History for the Holidays with you.
This time, I’m covering something that I don’t think we’ve ever talked about before–perhaps the biggest festival in Vietnam: Tết Nguyên Đán, often just shortened to Tet, which is Vietnam’s festival celebrating the lunar new year.
When we were all talking about our upcoming History for the Holidays episode, I’d come across an article by cultural anthropologist Nir Avieli that looked at popular foods traditionally served during Tet and how they are tied to the ideas of nationalism and cultural identity. I thought it was pretty rad, so here we are. While the article overall was some fascinating stuff, for our purposes I’m just going to take a look at what it teaches us about Vietnam’s special holiday food.
Okay, so, Tet. Tet is a lunar-based celebration, and it takes place on the first day of the new lunar year, which can change. It can land anywhere between the last week or so of January and the last week or so of February. A quick Google search told me that in 2024, Tet will fall on February 10th, though activities will likely occur over a span of several days as this festival is seriously a Big Deal. If this sounds similar to the Chinese New Year celebrations, there’s good reason for that.
Vietnam’s celebration has some of its significant roots in the Chinese festival, though of course there are certainly differences.
Anyway, due to Tet occurring between the time when rice was harvested and when it was planted, Avieli tells us that “Tet, then, is neither a harvest nor a planting festival, but an in-between period…it does not merely celebrate the farmers' gratitude for the previous harvest or hopes for future crops, but is also aimed at combating the effects of weather and at ensuring the safety of the stored crops during this dangerous period.”
It is perhaps not surprising then that food plays a big part in the festival–and I mean, don’t the vast majority of major events have some food-related aspect? I get it. I love food. Maybe a bit too much. Although Avieli’s article mentions several food items including mulberry syrup and candied kumquats, it focuses predominantly on Vietnamese New Year's Rice Cakes, which go by the name banh tet.
While in the modern day people are able to buy their banh tet at the store, the traditional method of creating them yourself is, I imagine, of interest to anyone out there who happens to love cooking (like, say, Kristin our producer). It’s a multi-day process. First you have to soak mung beans and sticky rice in water overnight.
Then, you press it into a wooden mold in the shape of a rectangle and stuff it with mashed green beans and pork (though, yes, you will find vegetarian and vegan versions around if you look for them). Then you use bamboo leaves and splinters to wrap it up into a cylindrical form and boil it overnight. When it comes time to eat it, the leaves are peeled back and it is cut into pieces. It is often served with a dip that could include peppers and soy sauce.
So, I hear you asking, what does this have to do with history, other than that it is a traditional food for a festival that has been occurring for centuries? Well, there’s a legend for the origin of the rice cakes that looks all the way back to the Hùng kings, the dynasty which is often attributed as the founders or originators of Vietnam, and who date back to what we in the US would say was over 2000 years BC or BCE. So we’re talking a long, long time ago.
Well, here’s the story: One of the Hung kings couldn’t decide which of his 20 sons should be his heir, which makes sense, because 20 sons is a lot of sons. After a genie appeared to him while he was dreaming and told him of the best plan of action, the king sent his sons all over the world in search of the best food, declaring that whoever brought back the food that tasted the best would get to be the heir. This is a smart way for selecting a leader.
Don’t trust somebody who doesn’t like good food. In any event, one of the king’s youngest sons, Lang Lieu, was the only one who didn’t go on a traveling quest. He didn’t have political support or money or even a mother and didn’t think he stood a chance at winning. Then, he also had a very important dream. In his dream, a deity told him that man’s staple was rice, and instructed him to make the rice cakes that we have been talking about this whole time.
The prince called his wife and children and maid and, I guess, anyone he could, to help him follow the instructions that he’d received in his dream. Altogether they made the rice cakes that the prince then brought to his father. The father tried the rice cakes, and all the various foods brought by his other sons. But I think you know where this is going. The king found the food brought from around the world to be both strange to eat and too expensive to make.
The cakes however, he not only enjoyed, but he learned had been divinely inspired. If you guessed that our banh tet-making prince became the king’s heir and successor, you would be right. And so it goes that, to this day, those rice cakes have a special place in Vietnamese food culture. Now I don’t know about you, but for me, when February rolls around, I’m going to be thinking about how much I want to try this truly special food with a fascinating origin legend. Have you had it?
Are you going to try it if you haven’t had it? You may have also heard it called Banh Chung, and it might’ve been square and not cylindrical since–as I mentioned earlier when it came to fillings–there are variations, as happens with all food across regions and eras. Thank you for joining me for the look at the legend behind a very special dish for Vietnam’s very special holiday…and if you celebrate Tet, I hope when it comes, you have a wonderful and prosperous new year.
Happy holidays, everybody!