Cornucopia is a horn filled with the harvest. When the horn is filled to overflowing, it represents abundance, proof of a bountiful harvest. Used as a centerpiece during the autumn, cornucopias are often woven of grapevine (grapes are harvested in the late summer/early autumn and the vine's strong and flexible which makes it suitable for weaving). Traditionally, fruit available in the autumn is used to fill the horn, but vegetables and items representing the change of the season are a lovely addition.

Here are some suggestions for filling a cornucopia...

apples
cranberries
chrysanthemums
ears of corn
grapes
maple leaves
pears
pecans and other nuts
pine cones
tangerines
winter squash and gourds

A great vegetarian restaurant on Wicklow Street in Dublin city centre, just off Grafton Street, the upmarket shopping district. Standard fare is vegetable quiche, lentil bake, pasta, brown rice, vegetable curry, sometimes more unusual dishes like stuffed aubergine, and a choice of lots of raw and cooked salads. The prices are a little high, but you get lots of good food, and they have a hefty rent to pay because of their location.

Cornucopia is also a good place to go if you like meeting or watching interesting people, because, understandably, they tend to gravitate to the few places in town where good, healthy food is served at a non-exorbitant price. Some of them are intelligent and intriguing, some are crazy, and some are just normal people who wandered into a nice place for a while and look around in slight bemusement, not sure exactly why there seems to be so much awareness in the air along with the food smells.

The cornucopia, which accompanies our traditional American celebration of Thanksgiving, has its roots in an early thanksgiving of sorts. According to Greek Mythology, the cornucopia represents the horn of the goat that suckled Zeus as a child which he broke off and filled with fruit to thank the nymphs that raised him. He then put the image of the goat in the stars as the constellation Capricorn.

Cor`nu*co"pi*a (k?r`n?-k?"p?-?), n.; pl. Cornucopias (-z). [L. cornu copiae horn of plenty. See Horn, and Copious.]

1.

The horn of plenty, from which fruits and flowers are represented as issuing. It is an emblem of abundance.

2. pl. Bot.

A genus of grasses bearing spikes of flowers resembling the cornucopia in form.

⇒ Some writers maintain that this word should be written, in the singular, cornu copiae, and in the plural, cornua copiae.

 

© Webster 1913.

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