Table Lodge
The Festive Board is a feature of the Masonry that extends back to our very beginnings. Operative stonemasons’ lodges would gather upon important occasions around tables laden with food and drink to celebrate in fellowship with the tangible fruits of their labor. Most common were feasts on St. John the Baptist’s Day and St. John the Evangelist’s Day – not coincidentally right around the time of the Summer and Winter Solstices. These traditions have been part of our Craft ever since. Indeed, one of the reasons given for forming the first Grand Lodge in 1717 was to hold an annual feast.
In the days before Masons had their beautiful purpose-built Masonic Temples and Lodge Rooms, members of the Craft often convened their Lodges in taverns and restaurants. The tables were pushed back and Square and Compasses might be scratched out in the sawdust covering the floor while the Brethren would perform their Masonic Work. Before too long some brothers had the idea of taking advantage of what the tavern had to offer, and a practice was born whereby the Brethren would take food and drink on a Masonic form and while conducting the Work of the Lodge. Over time, various ritual practices of the Table Lodge evolved, especially among military officers, who incorporated various elements from their formal dining traditions. These historic rituals and traditions have been resurrected in the modern day, and the Masonic Table Lodge with its multiple courses of food, toasts, responses, and giving of “Masonic Fire” has become one of the most popular special events among Masons.
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Mariners Lodge convenes its own version of the Table Lodge form, which incorporates various maritime traditions and symbols, and references the “Noachidic Legend” from the earliest days of Masonry. Our Maritime Table Lodge is an old-school Masonic event, bringing back the days when a Festive Board or Masons was boisterous, jovial and loud, and when the air rang with the sound of clinking glasses and voices joined in song.
Beefsteak Banquet
This Fall’s Maritime Table Lodge incorporates elements from the rich New York tradition of the Beefsteak Banquet – those famous celebrations of gluttony where men gathered to eat massive amounts of aged steak, lamb chops, shrimp cocktail, pork belly and mini-burgers washed down with bottomless schooners of beer. Forks and knives are strictly prohibited, but you will be provided with a butcher’s apron and plenty of napkins! Here’s how Joseph Miller described it in a 1939 piece for The New Yorker:
“Oh, they were amazing functions,” he said. “The men wore butcher aprons and chef hats. They used the skirt of the apron to wipe the grease off their faces. Napkins were not allowed. The name of the organization that was running the beefsteak would be printed across the bib, and the men took the aprons home for souvenirs. We still wear aprons, but now they’re rented from linen-supply houses. They’re numbered, and you turn them in at the hat-check table when you get you hat and coat. Drunks of course, always refuse to turn theirs in.
“In the old days they didn’t even use tables and chairs. They sat on beer crates and ate off the tops of beer barrels. You’d be surprised how much fun that was. Somehow it made old men feel young again. And they’d drink beer out of cans or growlers. Those beefsteaks were run in halls or the cellars or back rooms of big saloons. There was always sawdust on the floor. Sometimes they had one in a bowling alley. They would cover the alleys with tarpaulin and set the boxes and barrels in the aisles. The men ate with their fingers. They never served potatoes in those days. Too filling. They take up room that rightfully belongs to meat and beer.”
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