All About Food: Honoring Mom with an old-fashioned cake

Whether it’s called Muttertag, La Festa della Mama, Fête des Mères, Dia de las Madres, Mothering Sunday or Mother’s Day, motherhood has been celebrated throughout the world since prehistoric times when goddesses were worshiped as the creators of life. Festivals celebrating motherhood have always taken place in the spring, which is the time of fertility and rebirth in nature.

The early origins of Mother’s Day as we know it began in 17th-century England when small children, as young as 8 or 9, would be sent away from home to work as servants for wealthy families or to apprentice in some trade. Without benefit of ready cash or easy transportation, they often didn’t see their families from one year to the next. However, during Lent, they were allowed a short break to go home before the heavy demands of Easter chores required their presence at work. This became known as “going a-mothering.”

As they tramped along the roads to their villages, they would pick the spring wild flowers to give to their moms. Some even brought little gifts, given to them by their employers to bring home. In particular was the traditional Simnel cake, also known as mothering cake, an almond, dried, fruit spice cake, decorated with 11 little balls of almond paste, representing the 12 disciples minus Judas. Mothers would give their children a blessing when they received this cake. The fourth Sunday of Lent was the day that Lenten restrictions were set aside and the family all went to church together and afterward gathered for a feast honoring the mother of the house. This became known as Mothering Sunday. After which the children returned to work and, if they were lucky, might be able to return for Christmas.

As time went on, Mothering Sunday in England gradually was transformed into a secular holiday and became known as Mother’s Day.

In America, the early settlers were not so keen on secular holidays and the Mothering Sunday tradition died out. The earliest attempts to revive this celebration of motherhood were not successful because of their association with women’s suffrage and peace movements. Remember Julia Ward Howe who wrote the “Battle Hymn of the Republic”? In 1872, she proposed the idea of an International Mother’s Day to celebrate peace and motherhood but the notion didn’t quite catch on. Many women belonging to local groups held mother’s day remembrances but they were primarily religious gatherings.

Anna Jarvis may not be a name that you know but she was the woman who started a campaign of letter writing to politicians, businessmen and the clergy to have a national Mother’s Day. For her, it was a way of honoring her own mother, who had begun a Mother’s Friendship Day to heal the wounds of the Civil War. Anna was ultimately successful and the first official Mother’s Day was held in her hometown at Andrews Methodist Church in Grafton, W. Va. in 1908, with 407 people in attendance. Finally, her campaign resulted in President Woodrow Wilson declaring Mother’s Day an official national holiday in 1914.

It didn’t take long for this celebration to be transformed from a semi-religious experience — with prayers for peace and appreciation of a mother’s work and love — into a Hallmark card and a shopping frenzy, nourishing businesses and restaurants. Anna herself was actually arrested one Mother’s Day for trying to stop the selling of flowers. She said, “I wanted it to be a day of sentiment, not of profit.”

Why not prepare a mothering cake to honor your mother the old fashioned way. It’s a labor of love.

Happy Mother’s Day!

ELLE HARROW and TERRY MARKOWITZ were in the gourmet foods and catering business for 20 years. They can be reached for comments or questions at themarkos755@yahoo.com.