In medieval Christendom, September 29 marks the feast of the Archangel Michael: one of the four 'quarter days' of the rural year, when rents were paid, harvests ended, and the year turned toward the dark season. The meal does not follow the starter-main-dessert structure: it revolves around the festive table (the great roast offered to the lord or shared by the community), the offering bread kneaded from the new crop, preserves made from the last fruits before winter, and the travel provisions of pilgrims heading to Michaelic sanctuaries. It is a threshold meal: one gives thanks for what has been gathered, and fortifies oneself against what is to come.

The common thread of the Michaelmas table is freshly threshed cereals — barley, oats, rye — combined and offered in thanksgiving. The emblematic technique is the struan: gathering in one bread all the grains grown on the land, binding them with butter, eggs, and wild honey, and baking them before the fire on a lamb's skin. To offer it all is to consecrate the entire harvest to the one who weighs souls.