Saturnus

The Saturnalia, named for Saturnus, an ancient agricultural deity, began on Dec. 17.

Saturnus, alone among the planet-gods, resisted Germanisation.

Its pages contain not just recipes but an idyll of prelapsarian plenty, passed down the generations by those who still connect with pagan forces: Saturnus and his groaning table, a Saturnalia from the Golden Age.

Saturn was named after Saturnus, the Roman god of farming, who with his sickle taught human beings when to sow and when to reap: the inevitable cycle of birth, growth and death. Saturnus was the Roman version of the Greek god Cronos, a Titan who, fearing his own overthrow, devoured all the children born to him.