Christmas Dinner Specials From Around the World
By PR Newswire Staff Writers, November 13.
While Christmas dinner without roast turkey and all the trimmings would seem as unthinkable to some of us as an English summer without rain, our own Yuletide feasting is often a far cry from that enjoyed by people elsewhere in the world.
Roast turkey is a newcomer to the British Christmas table and only made its way to Europe from North America in about 1650. Before then, roast swan, goose or peacock was considered traditional Christmas fare.
A whistle-stop tour of Europe, the Far East and South America, however, shows that the Christmas culinary traditions of other countries owe as much to ancient custom and religious belief as they do to modern tastes. In some countries, December 24 rather than the 25th is the traditional day for dinnertime indulgence, while Ukrainian families embark on an amazing twelve separate courses, each one dedicated to one of Christ's 12 Apostles!
So let's take our taste buds on a trek around the world and find out how other countries and their cultures settle down to enjoy Christmas dinner, starting in the Far East:
In Japan, Christmas has been celebrated since the 1930s but with a distinctly Western feel to the proceedings in recent decades. Parents and children have been known to queue for hours outside the local Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise for a bucket of chicken for their Christmas dinner. This practice is due to the apparent similarity between Colonel Sanders and St. Nicholas! The dinner is usually rounded off with the older tradition of eating strawberry shortcake.
Culinary treats in Germany begin on December 6 when children leave their newly cleaned shoes on the doorstep. If you have been good, St. Nikolaus will fill them with chocolate, nuts and fruit but if you were bad you would only find a `rute' (rod). Germany indulges in three days of serious eating beginning on Christmas Eve with a lighter meal but on Christmas Day proceedings kick off with a traditional roast like duck, goose or beef fillet. This is served with potatoes, dumplings, red cabbage, and sprouts. The essential drink of the festive season is Gluehwein (mulled wine) rounded off with a variety of cakes, the most popular being Stollen (fruit loaf).
From Germanic excess to Ukrainian solemnity. Christmas is a very important family holiday in the Ukraine, a country that still observes ancient customs. The most important traditional meal is Sviata Vecheria (Holy Supper) on Christmas Eve. A sheaf of wheat stalks, called didukh (meaning Grandfather), is placed under the icons in the house. This is a very important Christmas tradition in the Ukraine as the stalks of wheat symbolise the ancestors of the family with the belief that their spirits reside in it during the holiday.
The most important food of the Christmas Eve supper is Kutia (boiled wheat with poppy seeds and honey) and is also called God's Food. To accompany this is God's Drink, Uzvar, which is made from 12 different stewed fruits. There are 12 meatless courses in total that make up the Christmas Eve supper, each one dedicated to Christ's Apostles in accordance with Christian tradition. The courses are meatless because there is a period of fasting required by the Church until Christmas Day.
In contrast, Mexico celebrates Christmas with all the razzmatazz of a carnival. At midnight on Christmas Eve, the birth of Christ is heralded with fireworks, ringing bells and blowing whistles. Following Mass, families return home to a huge dinner of traditional Mexican foods, the common ones being tamales (a fiery corn wrap), rice, rellenos (green chiles stuffed with cheese) and atole (a sweet drink).
The eight-day Jewish festival of Chanukkah, also known as the festival of lights, is sometimes thought of by non-Jews as the Jewish Christmas merely because it begins on December 25. But Chanukkah is not even mentioned in Jewish Scripture and is marked more by lighting oil candles than settling down to particular food. However, fried foods are usually eaten during this festival because of the significance of oil to the holiday.
Whatever you eat and wherever you eat it, the Christmas Day meal still remains something special.
Distributed by PR Newswire on behalf of PR Newswire Europe