EXPLORING THE ENDURING CULTURAL TRADITION OF MASONIC BANQUETS
By Aimee E. Newell
In November 1910, San Francisco’s California Lodge No. 1 held its 61st annual banquet and ball. The program, which included remarks by several lodge members, as well as music, was accompanied by a mouth-watering four-course meal. Each guest received a printed program and menu card listing the courses. Presented in French, the menu suggests a high level of elegance.
Guests feasted upon appetizers of olives, celery and oysters, then supreme de sole Joinville, sole surrounded by small shrimp, with potatos fondantes, potato balls fried in butter and then simmered in stock. Other meats included Baron d’Agneaux bourgeoise, a lamb dish, followed by poulet potis with demi-glace and petite pois an beurre – rotisserie chicken with a rich brown sauce and peas with butter. This was rounded out with a healthy lettuce salad aux fines herbs, and finished with a dessert consisting of biscuit glace, petite foures assorties, and café noir; in English, molded ices covered with merengue and served with small sweets and black coffee.
Menu cards are found in many Masonic archival collections, suggesting two things: that food and drink have accompanied Masonic ceremonies and celebrations for centuries, and that both the food and its presentation changed as American dining evolved. In the 1700s, early lodges in England and colonial America often met at local taverns. Accordingly, members ate and drank tavern food – generally a set menu with few choices but plenty of beer and ale. By the 1910s, banquets like the one described offered far more elegant fare. And today, American lodges are known for their eclectic meals ranging from pancake breakfasts and cookouts to formal, multicourse meals.
From Freemasonry’s very start, food and drink were intertwined with the fraternity. When English Freemasons came together during the early 1700s to form the Grand Lodge of England in London, they met at the Goose and Gridiron tavern in St. Paul’s churchyard. Undoubtedly, the men toasted their endeavor afterwards. In 1723, when James Anderson published his “Constitutions of the Freemasons,” he noted that the Grand Lodge of England resolved to hold an annual feast.
English Masonic records suggest that these early “feasts” were not always orderly. In 1724, rules for feasting were laid down: “The Stewards shall open no wine till dinner be laid on the tables… after eight o’clock at night, the Stewards shall not be oblig’d to furnish any wine or other liquors.” By 1784, the English Grand Lodge’s annual feast served 249 brethren at a cost of 271 pounds sterling. The men consumed 549 bottles of wine (champagne, burgundy, claret, madeira, sherry, and port) with their meal.
American Masonic groups followed the British lead. In 1733, when the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts was founded, it was directed to keep the annual December feast day of one of Freemasonry’s patron saints, St. John the Evangelist. Like other lodge activities, the feasts and banquets built Masonic brotherhood. As one Masonic historian explained, “the convocation of the Craft together at an annual feast, for the laudable purpose of promoting social feelings, and cementing the bonds of brotherly love by the interchange of courtesies, is a time-honored custom…”
A study of Masonic sources suggests that banquets, feasts, and table lodges had specific definitions. Feasts were associated with the days of the two Masonic saints – St. John the Baptist on June 24 and St. John the Evangelist on December 27, while banquets were held on other celebratory occasions – anniversaries, honors, etc. A table lodge was an actual lodge meeting held while brothers were seated around the table. A series of toasts was offered as part of the table lodge, complete with a special vocabulary, owing to their military roots. The toasts are “charges” and the glasses – which have heavy bottoms – are “cannons.” To drink a toast was to “fire a cannon.” After, the glass was slammed down on the table. (Read the article “Fire!” for more about Masonic toasts.)
The records of the early years of the Grand Lodge of California show a surprising lack of information about banquets or feasts. After the Grand Lodge was organized in April 1850 in Sacramento, it met in May and November each year. The meeting would start at 10 a.m., adjourn around noon, start again at 2 p.m. and adjourn before dinner, sometimes reconvening again at 7 or 8 p.m. until 10 p.m. While this schedule suggests that the Grand Lodge was breaking to eat and drink, there is no formal description of these meals in the official Proceedings, nor is there any mention of special meetings held on the feast days of either Saint John.
But, by 1950, when the Grand Lodge of California celebrated its centennial anniversary, more attention was paid to the food. The Proceedings report that a “buffet supper” was served to the visiting “distinguished guests” on the night before the festivities began. And, on the next night, a “fellowship dinner” was offered to 2,200 delegates at the Palace Hotel, while more than 600 wives ate dinner at the St. Francis Hotel. By this time, many American lodges had their own dishware marked with the lodge name and Masonic symbols, which they used to serve their members and guests. Panoramic photographs from the first half of the 1900s show long tables packed with diners, often dressed in their best clothes.
Throughout Masonic history, lodge members have looked forward to enjoying a fine meal together. While ritual and symbols inside the lodge remain the same, the meals have changed with the times, offering evidence of how American food and its preparation has evolved over the decades. As the description of the Scottish Rite Northern Masonic Jurisdiction’s 1917 “Jubilee Banquet” explained, after a “triumph of gastronomic art” (including no less than 20 menu items, from “breast of chicken, California style” to “fancy ice creams”) the attendees turned their attention to “an intellectual feast never surpassed in the history of the Rite.”
A toast to enduring Masonic feasting – may it continue to sate the appetite and foster fellowship!
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