Holiday food traditions

[rthstewart]

Americans celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday -- a holiday commemorated by a few people of the home (often but not always women) laboring long into the night before and that day struggling to bring to the table a collection of dishes all made at the last minute supposedly harkening back to the first feast in 1621 between the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony and the Wampanoag tribe. 

In yesterday's post, and in preparation for writing Chapter 13 of AW, Christmas in 1942, adaese and wellinghall have been providing me with fabulous information (and thanks again!).  I mentioned that the Christmas traditions an American family follows may depend in part on their ethnic background -- I know Italian families who always have fish on Christmas Eve and German families who always eat spaetzle and open presents on Christmas Eve.  Food traditions also vary widely throughout the U.S. by region but I don't know anyone who puts a traditional English pudding on the Christmas table.  min023 wanted to know what food traditions Americans have at their holiday if not pudding.   harmony_lover joined in with an observation about Christmas cookies.

And I thought, well, gosh this sounds like fun.  F-list you all come from all over.  What food traditions do you have at Thanksgiving, Christmas or other holidays like New Year's?

Growing up our family holiday gathering food was very hodgepodge and memorable in its eccentricity.  The sweet potato casserole is the stuff of legend -- canned yams/sweet potatoes, marshmallows, orange, brown sugar, and rum, which my mother ignited 3 successive times in the oven before realizing that one could not substitute an equivalent amount of rum  extract for 50 mL -- 1/4 cup rum. 

There was a holiday buffet of turkey or ham, orange cold molded jell-o salad with whipped cream, fruit, and coconut, mashed potatoes, onions in cream sauce, broccoli, and the Pièce de résistance, enchiladas, which have an interesting history.  That part of the family comes from the American Midwest and any meal was not complete without hot dish -- which I learned of when I moved to the great heartland.  When the family moved to the West Coast where we all lived, they brought hot dish with them which became enchiladas -- a more appropriate "hot dish" for California. 

When I moved to the Midwest I learned that you cannot attend any event in the state of Minnesota at which food is served and not encounter wild rice hot dish and its counterpart green bean casserole with canned cream of mushroom soup and Durkee fried onion ring topping.   "Creama" is serious business in Minnesota -- Campbell's cream of mushroom, cream of broccoli, and cream of chicken soup are essential ingredients and on every shopping list.

Desserts are, as harmony_lover indicated, frequently Christmas cookies which are one of the few places where you will see the dried fruit of a pudding.  I've also seen and eaten chocolate cake, cherry pie, Bûche de Noël, English trifle, pannetone, and gingerbread, again reflecting both  American efforts to tie to a cultural background (real or imagined), and what's available at the bakery or Trader Joe's.  Minnesota cookies were "pan of bars" -- that is, cookies baked in a pan and cut.

In truth, I don't make any of this of food, but it is what I grew up with.  Anyone else want to share?  And should you know anything of Christmas in 1942, I'll take that too! 

Comments

[jenett]

My parents are British (well, my father was English, and my mother was Austrian but grew up in Northern Ireland and Wales.) So, Thanksgiving - not a family thing.

Christmas was, when I was growing up, full out English - we'd have goose, roast potatoes, usually roast carrots and some other vegetable. And then Christmas pudding. (Which as a child, I hated, and now like a lot.) And of course crackers. (By which I mean the paper things that you open with a pop, and that have a paper hat, a joke, and a trinket.)

Friends (the husband's British) from when I lived in Minnesota would throw a solstice party every year, usually with Indian food, lots of different cookies, and then Christmas pudding, which always made me happy.

These days, since my religious celebration is Solstice, and my family's spread out, we've been tending not to do family gathering. (Also, my brother and his family are vegetarian, which does rather leave out the goose part...)

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

Where would you get a Christmas pudding in the STates? Did they make it from scratch or buy it somewhere? Locally, now, I know of two places I might go to buy a pudding, but these are relatively recent developments. There's this great store in our area that has the most amazing international section. It's built long and narrow and there are wire shelves and they are stocked with things from all over the world, organized by country. If you want your proper Cuban food, your Turkish, or your Russian, you go there, and I know that was where I could always get good tea and the Cadbury Roses assortment.

Solstice sounds like a LOVELY celebration, especially with Indian food. Yum.

[jenett]

We had an imported food store in town, weirdly, that would get things like that. (Also Bird's Custard, which is one of the canonical British custard mixes. People either love or hate it.) I think Mom got her suet there, and some of the fruits, before things like sultanas and dried currants were quite as common.

It's not that difficult to make, as I understand it, with two things - the canonical version usually uses suet (which is not common in the US, but you can get it from actual butchers) and it's steamed, which is weird to US cooks (but not actually that hard, once you get used to the idea of it being something dessert like rather than, say, veggies.)

[rthstewart.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for sharing your traditions! I have some vague idea of puddings hanging somewhere in cheesecloth and being 'steamed' somehow. I will have to look up the recipes!