Christmas Tra-"dish"-ions
by Taylor “Uʻi” Barongan
An easy way to engage in new traditions is to create new food dishes. All over the world, people have celebrated Christmas in a variety of ways, and with a mix of ingredients that always seemed to make something special for their families.
On this page:
Graphic by Naomi Lemieux
Fried Chicken
Japanese people line up outside of KFC, photo from CNN travel.
Starting back in 1974, Japan began to idealize American food and the idea of an American Christmas and what could be more American than fried chicken.
Since 1947, KFC has become ‘the meal‘ around Christmas in Japan. What‘s even more baffling than the idea of people getting KFC for Christmas dinner is people having to call months ahead of time to book a table at KFC on Christmas. A whopping 3.7 million families in Japan participate in this tradition, earning KFC $63 million more.
The reason behind this shameless celebration of fried chicken is due to the lack of a traditional ‘Christmas.‘ Less than 1% of the population in Japan is Christian, so before the KFC craze, Christmas in Japan was thought of more as a romantic holiday rather than the Americanized idea of Christmas. By 1974, Japan had developed a taste for western culture (i.e. introducing fast food to Japan), and the KFC spokeswoman at the time came up with the idea of marketing Christmas with a ‘Kentucky for Christmas‘ slogan. The slogan gained popularity with the masses, and slowly more of the population began to idealize the KFC Christmas dinner. However, if you don‘t want to wait in line to go to KFC this year, try making your own buttermilk fried chicken using buttermilk, flour, spices, and a hot pot of oil. As a way to spice things up, try drizzling lilikoi or guava syrup on the fried chicken.
Recipe found from Don’t Go Bacon My Heart, history found from BBC news.
Yule Log / Bûche de Noël
Bûche de Noël, a cake roll decorated to look like yule logs of old. Photo from 'Why Did You Eat That'.
In France, families with a Celtic influence often went out into the forest to collect a hefty log to warm their homes during the Winter Solstice and ward off any evil spirits. It is rumored that later on, the tradition evolved as France taxed its peasants, requiring them to march a Yule log, blessed with salt, wine, oil, and decorated with leaves and ribbons, to the house of the Feudal Lord. Thus, the tradition of a Bûche de Noël was created. This pastry is essentially a cake roll made to look like a decorated Yule log. To make this dish, all you need are the ingredients for a chocolate roulade, a chocolate ganache, and a chocolate mousse.
Recipe found from The Local Plateand history was found from Why Did You Eat That.
Mushroom Wellington
Mushroom wellington, a vegan alternative to England's classic beef wellington, photo from Delicious Everyday.
If you are vegan and are finding it hard to navigate around the usual courses of turkey and ham, you may want to try the mushroom Wellington. Wellingtons are meat pastries typically seen on baking or cooking competitions that make viewers want to eat their own screen. This year, when trying to make your own vegan-friendly Wellington, you will need the main ingredients of puff pastry, mushrooms, and some vegan egg-wash alternatives.
Recipe found from Delicious Everyday.
Melomakarona
Melomakarona, a Greek Christmas cookie, broken open in the traditional style. Photo from My Greek Dish.
If you are gluten-free and prefer to eat the lighter
things as opposed to stuffing and dinner rolls, perhaps
just skip right to dessert so you can be the first to break
open melomakarona, a Greek Christmas cookie. Like
gingerbread, these honey cookies signal the beginning
of the Christmas season. They are essentially honey
cookies that have either been baked or fried and sea-
soned with orange zest, cinnamon, cloves, and honey.
Recipe from My Greek Dish.
Kutia
Kutia, the last dish served at a Ukranian Christmas Eve feast. Photo from Nutmeg Disrupted.
The Ukrainian dish kutia is a healthy and hearty meal of sweet wheat. In Ukraine, Christmas Eve is often celebrated with 12 dishes one for each apostle in the Bible. Kutia is often one of the last dishes to be served as it is more of a dessert. It typically consists of poppy, honey, and wheat. Once mixed together with brown sugar and water, the dish can be served cold or hot though it is traditionally served cold.
Recipe from Nutmeg Disrupted.
Feast of 7 Fishes
Italian-American fish dish served during Christmastime. Photo from Eataly.
This tradition was created by Italian-Americans in the 1900s for the purpose of comforting Italian immigrants and making them feel a little closer to home. The idea behind the tradition is to prepare fish seven different ways. Researchers speculate that the use of the number seven is linked to Catholic symbolism (e.g seven deadly sins, seven days of creation). Some dish ideas include: grilled furikake salmon, sea bass soup, smoked trout dip, pesto seafood pasta, marinated anchovies, smoked ahi, seafood stew with taco and opihi, and chili and cilantro grilled shrimp.
History and recipes found from Eataly.
Introducing more traditions is important, especially in a pandemic, not only does it expand the typical palate, but also gives people new things to look forward to. If you do decide to try any of these recipes at home for Christmas, make sure to tag Ke Kalahea in your posts so we can see what new tra-dish-ions you come up with!