A Merry Feast

Christmas dinner at Yosemite's Ahwahnee would please an English squire.

by Joan Obra
Fresno Bee - December 15, 2004

Tonight, the sound of horns will signal the start of the central San Joaquin Valley's most lavish Christmas dinner.

Those attending a Bracebridge dinner, a tradition that started in 1927, are treated to the beauty of the Ahwahnee, as well as a seven-course meal and musicians clad in Elizabethan garb. Mark Crosse / The Fresno Bee

As many as 350 guests will be seated in the stately dining room of The Ahwahnee hotel in Yosemite National Park. They will dine on a seven-course meal, including treats such as plum pudding and wassail.
And musicians clad in Elizabethan garb will entertain them for about three hours.

Tonight's event is this year's first Bracebridge Dinner, a tradition that started at The Ahwahnee in 1927. It is the biggest performance of the year for the hotel.

"As a chef coming into this, it was kind of ominous at first," says Terry Sheehan, The Ahwahnee's executive chef, who is handling the dinner for the third year in a row. "I think a lot of people were like, 'Oh, is this guy going to make it?'"

Despite Sheehan's management experience at large hotels such as the Trump Taj Mahal Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, N.J., and The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, Colo., managing the Bracebridge Dinner proved to be a challenge. Each night of the Bracebridge Dinner requires about 100 servers and all of The Ahwahnee's kitchen staff, Sheehan says. The performers set the pace of the dinner; each course is served on cue.

"The first year was just getting through it, the second year was fine- tuning and really understanding it, and this year is making it outstanding," Sheehan says.

To learn about the Bracebridge Dinner, Sheehan studied the history of the event, which is loosely based on a Christmas meal detailed in "The Sketch Book," a collection of stories by Washington Irving. Published in 1819 and 1820, the book describes a 17th-century dinner at the manor of Squire Bracebridge, an Englishman known for his adherence to old customs and extravagant food.

"I could not, however, but notice a pie," Irving writes, "magnificently decorated with peacock's feathers, in imitation of the tail of that bird, which overshadowed a considerable tract of the table. This the Squire confessed, with some little hesitation, was a pheasant pie, though a peacock pie was certainly the most authentical."

A representation of the traditional boar's head also appears at dinner: "Suddenly the Butler entered the hall, with some degree of bustle," Irving writes. "He was attended by a servant on each side with a large wax light, and bore a silver dish, on which was an enormous pig's head, decorated with rosemary, with a lemon in its mouth, which was placed with great formality at the head of the table."

Scenes such as these inspired The Ahwahnee's meal, which always includes relish, soup, fish and salad to round out the dinner.

"It's a very traditional dinner as far as picking the courses," Sheehan says. "There is some latitude with creativity with the peacock pie or the fish course. That's kind of inspired by what's available seasonally and locally."

This year, Sheehan chose wild turkey pot pie for the peacock pie course.

"There are a lot of native turkeys in the High Sierra," Sheehan says. "I'm taking comfort food and turning it into something that's very elegant.

"I don't want people to be put off by the food," he adds. "You want people to be comfortable and not wondering, 'Am I going to regret this course?' You're dealing with a large segment of the population, and you have to be conscious of being middle of the road."

As a result, there is no boar's head here. Instead, Sheehan is serving a roasted, peppered Angus tenderloin. That course, known as baron of beef, is in line with the script of the show. Two characters, the housekeeper and the chef, argue over the merits of pork versus beef.

"You have absolutely picked the wrong beast to be ruler of the feast!" the housekeeper says. "Since when is common swine suitable to be served at a feast this momentous?"

"Oh, come now, madam!" the chef retorts. "The truly enlightened gourmet, as our dear friends this night here are, savors the boar's exotic aroma and its noble woodsy succulence!"

After several rounds, the Squire settles the debate, and the diners get their beef.

The Ahwahnee's Bracebridge dinners run through Dec. 25. The dinners are based on a story by Washington Irving that depicts a 17th-century feast. Mark Crosse / The Fresno Bee

The humorous exchange between housekeeper and cook is an example of how the Bracebridge Dinner's script has changed.

Originally, "it spoke of a very elegant and solemn occasion, with very few tiny touches of comedy. It was a very two- dimensional type of character portrayal," says Andrea Fulton, director and producer of the Bracebridge Dinner.

Fulton, who plays the housekeeper, rewrote the script in 2000 with George Baker, an actor and musician who plays the role of the parson.

"What it has now are a fully fleshed-out story line and characters," Fulton says. "Real scenes are presented between the courses."

The food itself is a major character in the script.

"One year, the food was terrible, and it really showed," Fulton says. "The guests were not responsive. … They were just kind of ticked off that the food was not as good as it might be."

The latest version of the script is a far cry from The Ahwahnee's original Bracebridge Dinner, which was launched in 1927 by Garnet Holmes, a pageant director. After Holmes died, famed Yosemite photographer Ansel Adams took over the event in 1929. Adams created the current structure of the pageant.

In 1934, Fulton's father, Eugene Fulton, joined the show. Upon Adams' retirement in 1973, Eugene Fulton, a San Francisco choral conductor, took over directorship of the show with his wife, Anna-Marie Fulton.

But Eugene Fulton's directorship didn't last long. After the 1978 dress rehearsal for the Bracebridge Dinner, Eugene Fulton died of heart failure.

"It was a beautiful way to die," says Andrea Fulton, who took her father's place as director.

Under the Christmas tree are fake gifts with the names of well-known people who loved Yosemite. Mark Crosse / The Fresno Bee

At the start of each performance, Fulton remembers her father, Adams and others who participated in past dinners.

"There's a sense of tradition and continuity, and it's something that's enormously felt by the audience," she says.

It is that feeling of tradition and fun that rings true to Irving's "Sketch Book": "It was inspiring to see wild eyed frolick and warm-hearted hospitality breaking out from among the chills and glooms of winter, and old age throwing off its apathy, and catching once more the freshness of youthful enjoyment," Irving writes. "There was a quaintness, too, mingled with all this revelry that gave it a peculiar zest: it was suited to time and place, and as the old manor house almost reeled with mirth and wassail, it seemed echoing back the joviality of long departed years."

IF YOU GO...

What: The Bracebridge Dinner

When: Seating begins at 6:15 p.m. Tickets still are available for tonight, Tuesday, and Dec. 22, 24 and 25.

Where: The Ahwahnee, Yosemite National Park

Cost: $300, including tax and gratuity but not alcoholic drinks

More information: (559) 253-5676