BS: Traditional Christmas food

Subject: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: RangerSteve
Date: 24 Dec 03 - 08:56 PM

My room mate, whose parents came from Norway, got roped into doing some traditional Christmas food for his family's annual Christmas gathering, since he's the only one alive in the family who knows how to cook the stuff. I got to sample some of it last night. The cookies were good, so were the Norwegian meatballs. Two other items were ok, but I'm not holding my breath until next year. Solte Flesk (sp?): pig belly (kind of like bacon) boiled and layered with cooked veal, then rolled up like a jelly roll, wrapped in a cotton towel, tied up and soaked in brine for three weeks. It wasn't as heart stoppingly bad as it sounds. Gravlaks (sp?): raw salmon, covered with salt, sugar, black pepper and dill, and left to marinate in it own juices for a few days. That wasn't bad at all. Fortunately, the really big Norwegian Xmas delicacy - lutefisk, was not on the menu. His parents used to make it every Xmas, and it stunk the house up something awful. It's fish cured in lye. Really. The same stuff that opens drains and carries a label warning you not to eat it, and it's a main ingredient in Norway. Ok, so cocoa involves lye in the process, but they don't include it in the name. (lutefisk means lye fish).

This is where I thank my parents for being just plain American.

So, what traditional holiday dishes, good or bad, do you have to deal with?

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: Emma B
Date: 24 Dec 03 - 09:07 PM

Gravad Lax - raw salmon flavoured with dill - a Swedish speciality but available in most English supermarkets and enjoyed with mustard sauce and cucumber (certainly by me)
I shall be cooking wild boar (Tuscan style) with bitter chocolate and pine nuts!

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 24 Dec 03 - 09:22 PM

Gravad Lax - raw salmon flavoured with dill - can get in Australia - love it!

They use the lye in making lutefisk, because the starting ingredient is dried salted fish, rigidity & texture akin to pine board. Gotta do SOMETHING to make it edible! Trust me!

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: Sorcha
Date: 24 Dec 03 - 11:13 PM

All sound icky except the meatballs....I don't do 'icky' food any time of the year.....and, I'm leaving out the ham, chicken and noodles, sweet potatoes, pecan pie, apple pie, 3 kinds of dressing (plain, giblet and oyster--plain will do), 4 green veg, (including that horrid green bean/fried onion from a can casserole), etc, etc, etc.......(course, I don't do fish well either.....)

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: RangerSteve
Date: 25 Dec 03 - 07:55 AM

Sorcha, the salmon, eaten as Emma described it is far from icky. Neither was the pig belly, it only sounds icky.

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: mack/misophist
Date: 25 Dec 03 - 08:57 AM

The traditional New Year's Day dinner in much of the South should include black-eyed peas and onions. The idea was from Africa originally, I hear.

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: mg
Date: 25 Dec 03 - 11:26 AM

they used to make ice cream that had a tree shape in the middle...if that wasn't available, then pepperment ice cream. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 25 Dec 03 - 12:10 PM

To explain just a little bit more about lutefisk:

It begins its existence as cod. It's soaked in lye until all that's left is a sort of translucent matrix is all that's left. Then the lye is washed out, and it's shipped dried.

When you get it, it's stiff as a board. You soak it, and simmer or steam it. It stinks. It's served with melted butter, hot or cold.

Depending on the serving temperature, it has two distinct flavors.

If you serve it hot, it tastes like hot wallpaper paste.

If you serve it cold, it tastes like COLD wallpaper paste.

It stinks, either way.

This from my Minnesota childhood.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 25 Dec 03 - 12:20 PM

I was treated to gravadlax - very like smoked salmon, only dill-y - and sweet-cured herring and pressed duck and other Finnish delicacies last night. Yummy.

Lutefisk sounds kind of like the salt-cured balachaí (wrasse, now that I think of it - a deep-sea Atlantic fish) that used to be the Christmas treat in Aran when i was little; you soaked it in two changes of water, then cooked it in milk with onions and served it with buttery mashed potatoes. Mmmmmmm.

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 25 Dec 03 - 04:34 PM

Olives have to be soaked in lye to render them edible.

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: Sorcha
Date: 25 Dec 03 - 05:12 PM

Nothing really trad for Christmas here. Some years turkey, sometimes ham or venison....not a huge feast like my Gran used to make. Lordy, she would cook and bake for days....

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: Emma B
Date: 25 Dec 03 - 06:53 PM

Bacalla, Baccala - or just plain salt cod although traditionally it comes from Norway, Scotland and Newfoundland is paricularly popular in Catalunya and northern Italy - there are loads of mouthwatering recipes! Before it can be used it should be soaked for a couple of days in cold water, changing the water 5 or 6 times during the process

Brandada de bacalla - shredded salt cod with olive oil, garlic and milk - mixed in with mashed potato
- sounds a bit like the Aran treat JTT

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 25 Dec 03 - 10:24 PM

Most of those salt cod recipies must go back hundreds of years... You're eating History!

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Dec 03 - 11:28 PM

My Puerto Rican ex used to eat baccala for breakfast when he was a child. Not sure how they fixed it. I've had it in New York City in the park in a kind of batter that is poured onto hot grease so that it cooks crisp quickly. I love it but it is always a mistake to eat it--it assaults the lower GI something fierce.

We had as a guest a Pakistani student who works in the university library where I work. I had a couple of chickens, so I roasted one and the other I fixed in a spicy pilaf. I didn't have a Pakistani recipe book so I found a recipe from northern India. He was pleased to see a familiar dish.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: GUEST,Queen Be
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 02:17 AM

looking for trad xmas tuscan/ital recipes or at least ideas can you offfer any

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 11:43 AM

Are you in the U.S. and do you get cable? There is one of those cooking channels that has several Italian shows. One I have been particularly impressed with I haven't gotten the name of when I watched, but it is something like "Everyday Italian," but I'm sure that skinny little lady will come up with some mega-calorie Italian dishes for the holidays.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: catspaw49
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 12:00 PM

"Everyday Italian" and it's a skinny little lady? That's complete bullshit. Maybe she's real young or something possibly and you meant skinny young woman.......Is that it? Or possibly she's really old and that happens......But you can't be skinny on everyday Italian.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 12:11 PM

I know--it's a contradiction in terms. But she does such a good job cooking this stuff that I don't think she's a front for a corpulent cook offstage. And it really isn't fair to assume anyone who cooks like that can't stop at a reasonable number of calories. :) I'd love to cook like that AND look like that!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: Charmion
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 02:43 PM

Eastern Canada is turkey country, and families of British Isles background (like us) typically also go in for fruitcake and steamed puddings, the latter eaten with either a hot, brandy-flavoured sauce or a cold paralyzingly sweet substance called "hard sauce" that is actually a rum-flavoured blend of butter and icing sugar. I always make gravlax in December as it is very nice with scrambled egg for a special breakfast or a light supper after days of too much rich fare. And New Year would not be the same without cassoulet and tourtiere. This is why we have Lent, with its penitentially low diet: so we can squirm into our bathing suits again when swimming season rolls around.

Our family wanders away from the turkey menu frequently because some of us are downright competitive cooks. This year, it's my turn to cater Christmas dinner, and we have a 15-pound country ham from Alamance County, North Carolina, that will be served with biscuits, corn bread and apple butter as well as the usual veg. I think we'll have to drink beer with it; I can't imagine any wine that would survive contact! The hard part will be to find a bucket big enough to hold the ham fully immersed in water so I can soak some of the salt out of it.

The big culinary deal in this area is what people euphemistically call "the Christmas baking", which is actually a massive onslaught of shortbread, gingerbread, Nanaimo bars, rum balls and variegated cookies of every imaginable type and size. If you don't have five kinds of cookies to trot out on Christmas Eve, they revoke your Ottawa Valley passport.

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: GUEST,greg stephens
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 02:50 PM

Bah! to all that fancy stuff. You can't beat a well-boiled Brussels Sprout.

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: catspaw49
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 05:15 PM

Actually Greg, you can beat the livin' shit out of one with any number of handy tools......like a meat cleaver, a tenderizing hammer, a ladle, a stainless serng sppon, or for that matter, your own fist. It's pretty easy because they are small and rarely fight back.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: Pogo
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 05:37 PM

{O)

Black-eyed peas and collards for New Year's Day, along with ham. I was always told you eat it to bring money in for the new year...collards for dollars and peas for pennies.

I also had a great-grandmother who would not wash clothes on New Year's Day. According to superstition you wash on New Year's Day then you wash for a funeral (i.e. someone close to you will die within the year)

Other than that...the usual fare, turkey, potato salad, ham and whatnot. Who was it that was asking me for the squash casserole recipe again?

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: Cluin
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 05:57 PM

Turkey with stuufing & gravy and shortbread cookies. And those little chocolate balls in the tinfoil wrappers.

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 06:12 PM

Never trust a thin chef.....

There are various recipes for Pannetoni around, a fruity sponge pudding. Try a word search... it might even tell you how to spell it correctly because I can't!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: jaze
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 06:58 PM

LOL, Spaw. That's exactly what one should do with a Brussell sprout!

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: Peace
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 07:01 PM

Capaletti.

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: freda underhill
Date: 27 Nov 04 - 07:01 PM

Persimmon Pudding

2 cups persimmon pulp
1 1/2 C. sugar (I used fructose)
3 egg whites beaten lightly
1 3/4 C unbleached white flour
2 t. baking powder
1/8 t. salt
2 t. vanilla
2 cups of some type of milk (original called for 1 cup half and half and
1 cup milk - I used a 12 ounce can of evaporated skimmed milk and 1/2 cup of non-fat rice milk)
1 t. baking soda
2 t. cinnamon
1 t. ginger
1/2 t. nutmeg
1/8 t. cloves (original called for 1 t. - optional - YIKES)

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Mix sugar, pulp, egg whites, vanilla, and milk. In another bowl combine the rest of the ingredients. Blend the two mixtures. Pour into a 9X13 greased pan. Bake for 60 minutes or until set and a toothpick
inserted comes out clean. Let cool completely. serve with custard or brandy sauce.

..... I havent cooked this particular recipe, but a friend in Canberra makes such a good persimmon pudding (she has a persimmon tree in her back yard) that i scrounged around n found this on on the net, to inspire anyone who wants to try it. its nectar!

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: tarheel
Date: 28 Nov 04 - 11:51 AM

its a usual traditional christmas dinner for us,each year! baked ham with crushed pineapple, green beans, baked candid yams, jello salad, deviled eggs and mincemeat pie with whipped cream topping!(of course this is all prepared by my bride of 45 years...peggi!!!
....then for new years,it's big thick grilled pork chops,turnip greens and black-eyed peas and cornbread!peg's home made lemon pies for dessert and that alone is worth waitiung for the whole year!!!
it's a tradtion here in the south!(north carolina)it supposed to bring good luck for the new year!
so...if we are a little early,so be it....but here's wishing all catter's the best for the coming new year!...uh..oh yes,MERRY CHRISTMAS,TOO!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: GUEST,bbc at work
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 11:25 AM

Same as Thanksgiving, but w/ a tree in the background.

best,

bbc

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: MMario
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 12:09 PM

Christmas has varied -- My Mom usually just let us "graze" - buffet foods. Currently it appears to be crown roast of pork with cranberried stuffing, sour cream gravy,veggie of the moment. It was ham for a few years until the non-cooks in the family informed us they don't LIKE ham.(insane!) It was goose one year - and will never be again. (Not unless *I* cook it. I refuse to clean up after anyone else if they are going to cook goose)

Christmas EVE though - tortellini in brodo.

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 12:20 PM

Oyster stew, made with milk, cream, and real butter, on Christmas Eve.

I'll see if I can find the venison mincemeat recipe my wife has. It came to California in 1848 from Pike County, Missouri. No, the woman's name was not Betsey.

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 01:04 PM

I did not know the ottawa valley was in the east .

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: Cluin
Date: 29 Nov 04 - 01:06 PM

It is from here, guest.

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: dianavan
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 01:50 AM

Wasn't there already a thread about this? Haven't I already mentioned my mom's divinity fudge or her date pinwheels?

Christmas Eve is a smorgasboard of cold cuts, cheeses, crackers and pickles.

Christmas Day is turkey and all the trimmings but instead of pumpkin pie, we usually have chocolate, pecan pie. We usually top it off with fancy coffee.

Nothin like that this year because I'm going to Mazatlan after all. I know I'm going to miss the traditional fare but heh, its getting cold up here and today I saw snow.

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: GUEST,Mingulay
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 06:05 AM

In the midst of recipes for super indulgent comestibles at last, thanks to Greg and Spaw, a glimmer of hope that the Festive Cheer will after all be traditional. The Brussel Sprout rules. This, most deservedly, maligned of all vegetables, this inedible, indigestible and indestructible green lump is the very embodiment of the Spirit of Christmas.

Come December 25th at lunch time I will again undertake that annual death defying feat of eating (without the aid of safety net, drum roll optional) ONE WHOLE BRUSSEL SPROUT. This task completed, the formalities conclude and merrymaking can commence.

The consumption of more than one of these beasts is to be heartily discouraged by any other member of the party who may still be around in 2 hours time ( this being the gastric gestation period).

Personally I have always wondered why it is not possible to obtain really good fish and chips on Xmas day.

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: Charmion
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 01:58 PM

To the anonymous GUEST above: Eastern Canada begins at Dryden, Ontario, where the time zone boundary is. (Eastern Time, geddit?) Despite its location in left-hand part of the Eastern Time zone, Toronto -- the centre of the known universe -- is not really in Eastern Canada.

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: LadyJean
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 11:40 PM

PLUM PUDDING AND HARD SAUCE!!!!!!! Oh God! How I miss it. Mother always served it for dessert on Christmas. After she died, my friend Marion and I would get together for a traditional post Christmas plum pudding and hard sauce gorge with sister from hell stories. (She wins the sister from hell contest. Mine never comitted a felony.) Then Marion got married and moved to Redmond Washington. I probably could eat a whole plum pudding with hard sauce, but I don't think it would be a good idea.
Hard sauce is butter, powdered sugar, a bit of cream and some vanilla extract, blended together to make a very thick icing. Since the recipe came from my dad's family, and they were Methodists, no brandy or whiskey in our hard sauce, though I understand other families indulged.
Now, it is my opinion that a Christmas book can not be read, unless one is eating a piece of Christmas candy. Others may disagree.

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 05:59 AM

It's Brussels Sprout. The capital of Belgium (after which this delectable King of Vegetables is named) is Brussels with three s's, not Brussel with two. That's what me mam said and she knew a lot of stuff about cooking.

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: Charley Noble
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 08:54 AM

Lady Jean-

"PLUM PUDDING AND HARD SAUCE!"

Yes, that's an annual desert that mother still creates at the age of 88. But it's getting more difficult every year to assemble the ingredients, one of which is suet.

This year I made the rounds of the various supermarkets finding suet in the display cases but only pre-mixed with bird seed. Mother thought about that for a while but really preferred the unadulterated product. So I went back to the largest supermarket and talked to the youngman in the white coat behind the butcher counter who must have been all of 17:

"No, the only suet for sale was in the display case mixed with bird seed."

Then I got a brilliant idea and asked him if the suet in the display case was mixed at their store. And after a few minutes he determined that it was. I then asked if there wasn't somewhere in the production line where pure suet might be accumulating on a shelf, and after a few minutes he determined that that was indeed happening. I then asked if I might purchase a pound of that, and after a few minutes he determined that was possible and even brought me out a pound all wrapped and priced before I could proceed with more questions.

Mother is very pleased with my successful shopping for this Christmas season.

"Suet" by the way is a white solid fat byproduct from cattle.

Yum!

Cheerily,
Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: Morticia
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 09:13 AM

thanks all,you just reminded me, Ist December, time to get the sprouts on.

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: MMario
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 09:33 AM

YOu used to be able to buy ground suet - which made it ever so much easier to make boiled puddings...

from my brother in law's family comes a "festive" dessert - though they didn't restrict it to Christmas - Chocolate Bread Pudding with Hard Sauce. their version of hard sauce , butter, suger, whiskey - and regrigerated so it is actually hard. The chocolate bread pudding is made slightly on the bitter side - and served hot hot hot - so you get the contrast of soft,bitter, hot chocolate with the cold, hard, sweet.

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: GUEST,Mingulay
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 11:52 AM

Morticia, I fear it is too late to put the sprouts on now. Sprout pans need at least 6 weeks vigorous boiling before soft enough for use.

DID YOU KNOW!! Little known fact, the nuclear bomb was invented as a direct result of Brussels sprouts. Scientists found it easier to split the atom than the sprout. Not only that but the half life of sprout fallout is twice that of any mere uranium based product.

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: DougR
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 12:34 PM

Charmion:I cooked a country ham a couple of years ago at Christmas. Unfortunately, my family did not appreciate the taste of the Southern delicacy. I ended up using it to season various veggies, particularly beans, over the next few months. Me, I LOVE country ham, and if invited, I might show up on your doorstep come Christmas.

We have our combined families over on Christmas Eve for dinner and the menu includes: Beef, Pork and Chicken tamales with sauce, beans and rice. Dessert will be Bourbon Pecan Pie and Pumpkin pie.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: MMario
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 12:38 PM

I love country ham - but have never been able to successfully *cook* one so that it is edible.

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: DougR
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 12:44 PM

Uncle Dave O., I was raised in a Norwegian community in central Texas. We could always tell when the Christmas season was official. Upon walking into either of the two grocery stores in town one was greeted with the smell of the dried Lutefisk in their wood barrel containers. I never tasted Lutefisk though. Too smelly for my taste. The Norwegians made wonderful Christmas cookies though.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: Once Famous
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 12:49 PM

To many Jews, our traditional Christmas food is going out to have a great Chinese meal in one of our local restaurants with our families and friends just waiting for the world to get back to normal again.

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 12:53 PM

Also the best time to go see the latest films, Martin. It's a tradition...on Christmas eve. Rarely a goy in sight!

;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Traditional Christmas food
From: Once Famous
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 03:26 PM

Yeah, Ellenpoly. Plenty of seats. No lines for popcorn. Very few, if any, floating odors in the theater.