Beverly Knauer lives in beautiful San Diego, California, and began low carb in the 1970's. She's taken several detours from the LC path during the years only to come back to it, realizing it's the only way she wants to live.

Beverly is Chief of Rehabilitation Services for a California Children Services, and is currently writing a book for children.

The customary holiday meal I was planning suddenly became a source of concern. Since I was following a low-carb eating plan, I assumed I would be making some of our traditional holiday foods along with some special low carb dishes. But now that I thought about it, I remembered that mom and dad were both following a low-fat regime, Aunt Margaret was on a diabetic plan, my friend Ruth was a vegetarian, Mick was allergic to nuts and shellfish, and Grandpa Jack was just a picky eater! What menu could I create that would satisfy such diverse needs?

For weeks, I poured through cookbooks and Internet sites looking for recipes that would appease all of my guests' dietary needs.

Frustrated from writing down and tossing out multiple menus, it occurred to me — I was losing sight of the real meaning of the holiday meal. By pressuring myself to plan the perfect event, I had allowed my focus to deviate from the purpose of the holiday feast, which is simply breaking bread together.

When people today speak of "breaking bread", they are talking about the experience of eating; however, the meaning of the term relates back to Biblical times, when it actually was about the physical act of breaking bread. There were no forks or knives, so people ate with their fingers. They joined together in camaraderie as they feasted. The bread was shared as it was passed around the table, and the participants literally broke off chunks to eat.

Now we live in an era of fast food, and families have difficulty finding the time to break bread together. People eat "on the go" — often alone, and even while driving in a car. We grab quick foods like diet shakes and bars, and quickly consume frozen dinners prior to dashing Janie off to dance class. Sometimes daily time constraints make it difficult to remember that sharing meals can do much more than just feed a physical hunger.

The sharing of food is the very essence of community. And the holiday season allows us a moment for coming together and breaking bread. We eagerly anticipate feasting with family and friends, and all those traditional foods that symbolize the things we value most. Holiday celebrations bring food, family, and friends together, illuminating our profound desire for human fellowship and union.

No celebration is complete without the act of sharing food. The breaking of bread is important to virtually all celebrations around the world.

Imagine a wedding without sharing cake, Thanksgiving without sharing turkey, Hanukah without sharing latkes. It is the act of partaking of those foods with family and friends that is so important.

Meal times are an opportunity — an occasion to unite. Breaking bread together can be a soulful activity, with the potential to satisfy our deepest longing for connection with our fellow human beings. It is an act woven through the ages into the tapestry of our lives.

For many years, I have been eating the same traditional holiday menu. There are certain foods or meals that I associate with people who have been significant to me. Favorite foods we feast on through the years become symbolic of the people no longer physically with us at our gatherings — they seem to appear in spirit every time we bite into Gerty's world-famous butterhorns, or sip Grandpa's famous eggnog punch.

Even those people who are unrelated become family when we share a table. When people eat together, there is an intimacy in that communion. We invite people into our lives when we ask them to our tables, and the food we share then becomes a sign of our commonality. While sharing the feast, we take the threads of diversity and weave them into one tapestry where we all belong together. Joy is amplified and sadness subsides when we share. A meal together seals our intent to be community.

Placing emphasis on mundane worries can destroy the essence of what is truly important in planning a holiday meal. Anguishing over the fat content of the food, or worrying if we can accommodate all the different dietary restrictions, or fretting that the dinner plates don't match, keeps us from focusing on the soulfulness of sharing the food.

I resolved my holiday dilemma by inviting people to bring a dish to share from their special food plan. This way, everyone had something they could eat, and I could round out the menu out with traditional favorites. I also made a large loaf of homemade bread (low carb, of course) to pass at the table to symbolize the act of breaking bread. As each person broke off a chunk, they shared about a special meal that they had sometime in the past. Breaking the bread fed our spirit as well as our flesh.

During this holiday season, I am going to put emphasis on each celebratory meal as a means of reaffirming the ties we have to each other, and to our community. It is both physical bread and spiritual bread that will sustain us. The mission will be for each guest to leave with a sense that they've been nurtured and nourished in a way that goes beyond just a full stomach and fat–free gravy.

The food will be there to feed the physical hunger — the act of sharing will be there to feed the soul.


                                                          

Copyright © December 2003  Beverly Knauer and Low Carb Luxury
Title photo Copyright © 2003  Neil Beaty and Low Carb Luxury

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