A Continual Feast: A Cookbook to Celebrate the Joys of Family & Faith Throughout the Christian Year

My cooking is simple, ordinary, and I seldom follow recipes. But one recipe I have gone back to again and again is the Four-Egg Cake in A Continual Feast cookbook by Evelyn Birge Vitz. That is a wonderful sacrament cake--First Holy Communions, Confirmations, Baptisms, Weddings-- I have made it again and again, for over twelve years, and have had consistent, excellent results! The recipe is a wonderful from-scratch experience, and the kids love to help as each step progresses towards a marvelous tasting result! Vitz' book is much more than a cookbook, it is a lesson in Catholic traditions in the kitchen.... I have recommended it for many, many years! I have also given it as gift many times!

This book is a great help for planning meals that celebrate the bigger feast days in the Church Year. The ideas included help the preparer to add more meaning to the celebration with the food being used, as well as to educate those who partake!

As an Anglo-Catholic who was not raised as one, I have had many questions about customs and liturgies. This is one of the sources I reach for first when I need answers.The focus of this book is on home practices, on customs and especially on foods. However, this is not just a collection of recipes for various Saint's days, but also includes information about each saint and about the seasons of the liturgical year, starting, quite properly, with a discussion of "Sunday" since each Sunday is a mini-celebration of Easter. If you are raising a family and wish to do so in a Christ-centered way, you should have a copy of this book. While it is aimed primarily at Catholic and Orthodox families there is much material here that would be useful in a Protestant family, particularly one that wishes to explore the two thousand years of Christian tradition rather than "re-inventing the wheel."

This is a nice book with some fun information about saints and their days. After buying it, our family started to celebrate name days (any excuse to have a celebration). I wish it had more ideas for meals and more saint days, but the ones already in there are well done.

This is a really helpful cookbook, especially if you didn't come out of a liturgical tradition orginally. Evelyn Vitz has laid the book out in a calendar fashion for the most part, but has sections on days of fasting and abstinence and saints days. I really love her recipe for plum pudding and use it every year now. I had tried several other recipes before hers, but hers is definitely the best. We have also included a lot of her other suggestions in our family celebrations. This is a cookbook that I refer to frequently (especially during Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter).This book is great for any Christian family that wants to add a bit more traditional Christian emphasis to their lives. You don't have to be Catholic or Orthodox to enjoy it and use it. You may find yourself understanding Catholic and Orthodox traditions once you've read it, however.This book passes on traditions that some families failed to get from Great Grandmother before she died. If you are from a Christian family, it will help you get in touch with your roots (as well as give you a lot of delicious recipes to try).