A HOLIDAY MEAL

•	Pick out some special holiday meal celebrated by you and your family.
•	List the dishes and drinks prepared for the meal.
•	For each dish, list the ingredients.
•	Perform several analyses on the meal.

1.	Plants: What plants provide the ingredients?
a.	What is the biogeographical origin of the plants from which the foods and ingredients are derived (Old World vs. New World, for example)?
b.	What ingredients have a tropical origin? A temperate?
c.	What is the contemporary agricultural-economic origin--where were the actual ingredients grown, processed, packaged, sold?
d.	By weight, what is the most expensive ingredient with a botanical origin? The least expensive?
e.	What plant taxonomic group (family, for example) has the greatest prominence in the meal in terms of number of ingredients? Calories? Cost?
f.	What plant parts (fruit, flower, seed, leaf, stem, root--underground part) are represented in the meal? What plant parts provide the most calories? What are the most common plant parts appearing in the meal? 
g.	How do the highly processed plant-based ingredients in the meal compare to the non-processed or lightly processed ingredients in terms of bulk, calories, flavor, etc.? 
h.	How does the list of plant parts in the meal relate to the list of kinds of plant?
2.	Symbols: Dishes, ingredients, recipes.
a.	What stories connect the meal, its foods, recipes, and ingredients to the holiday?
b.	What do the various foods, ingredients, and practices represent?
c.	What is the relationship of the biogeographical origin of the ingredient and its origin as a symbol in the holiday or celebration?
d.	What meal comes closest to the ingredients, foods, and recipes actually used at the origin of the holiday? 
e.	What is the meal like among different families, in different parts of the country, in different parts of the world? 
f.	What unites the traditions (culinary, religious, cultural, social, etc.) of the meal across time and place?

•	Compare the findings of the class.
•	Prepare a celebratory potluck meal and exchange stories and recipes.
•	Develop other analyses that explore the connections of plants and people through culinary traditions and practices.