Vitalia Senior Residences at Stow’s Culinary Brings “The Twelve Days of Christmas” to the Table

Did you know “The Twelve Days of Christmas” is quite a unique song? Besides the fact the singer’s true love gives a lot of very bird-heavy gifts, it has a long and interesting history. The first written documentation of the song was in an English children’s book from 1780 titled Mirth With-Out Mischief and the lyrics were a bit different than they are now. For instance, it originally was Four Colly Birds, not Four Calling Birds. A colly is old English slang for blackbird. It wasn’t until 1909 when Frederic Austin penned the lyrics that we’re all familiar with and the song took on its more permanent version.

At Vitalia Senior Residences at Stow, we are excited to celebrate “The Twelve Days of Christmas” and look forward to honoring the song through our unique takes on food. It’s a great opportunity to get creative and turn classic recipes on their heads! This is the second year we will be pairing food items with the song. We start on Christmas Day by incorporating pears into our menus to represent the Partridge in a Pear Tree and finish on January 5th by presenting unique breadsticks that represent the Twelve Drummers Drumming.

We are most excited about the Ninth Day of Christmas and Nine Ladies Dancing. These nine dancers were really the gifts known as the Fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5:22-23. The fruits are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  

Our menu item for the day is a new twist on a comforting dish. We will be having lady finger French toast! When stepping back and asking ourselves what fruit of the spirit means, we decided comfort food was the best way to go. What’s more comforting than French toast on a cold winter day?

As the Culinary Director, I’m proud of these offerings and excited to share them! So, consider this my personal invitation for you to stop by on any of the days to give my specials a try.