Today's post, my first ever guest blog, is brought to you by my favorite Mundane Ethnographer:
"Christmas has a myriad of meanings to billions of different people around the world. Multiply these different meanings by how they have changed over time, throughout generations, and you have so many different Christmas traditions that it actually boggles one's mind. However, the one aspect of Christmas that remains unchanging across humanity and throughout history is the presence of a Christmas meal. Although the main dish consumed at Christmas changes country-to-country, culture-to-culture, family-to-family, and year-to-year, the truly consistent factor is that this meal is perceived as special. If you sit and ponder that factor for a few seconds, it is actually quite incredible to think about--so many different people in all the different corners of the world sit down to a special meal on the same day every year.
Here in the States, as well as in Great Britain, and I believe Canada, the "traditional" Christmas dish is turkey. This particular "tradition," however, is actually very recent--only in the 19th century did the turkey begin to replace the goose as the star of the Christmas meal. In the Philippines a roast pig is the Christmas meal's mainstay, while in Portugal you are likely to find salt cod. In Italy you will come across the Feast of the Seven Fishes, and in Scandinavian countries you will likely see carp on the Christmas table. In Mexico, many families eat tamales or turkey with mole sauce, and in South Africa, where Christmas is mid-summer, my family always has a braai (the Afrikaans word for barbeque) on the beach, consisting of assorted chops, meat, seafood, and boerewors (a traditional South Africa sausage).
However, I think that what people at eat Christmas time does not matter as much as how people eat. Like I said previously, thousands of different Christmas meals exist. Some of these meals have centuries of traditions and histories behind them, while many are made up on the whim of the moment. I remember one Christmas that my family boycotted our usual turkey and decided to do an all-Mexican themed Christmas dinner. We ate tortilla soup, tamales, enchiladas, and tacos. My mom and I made an assortment of different homemade salsas, guacamole, and different relishes, and we had flan for dessert. Although, this meal had no cultural history or tradition in our family, what made it a Christmas meal was all the time and extra preparation that went into it, and the feeling as we sat down to dinner that this was a special meal because after all, it was Christmas.
I am lucky to have grown up in a family who always ate dinner together every night, but many American families do not have a daily family meal. I would argue that the Christmas meal, no matter what is eaten, is particularly significant in the way that many families who do not normally sit down to eat together, do so at Christmas. Although their meal may be take-out from Boston Market, it is the fact that they see the meal as special that truly makes it a, "Christmas meal". Other families who normally get take-out every other night of the year may decide to actually cook the meal for themselves, because it is Christmas. Like I said, it is not necessarily what is consumed that matters, but rather the ritual, performance, and expectations around the meal that define it.
The Christmas meal, however, is only one small aspect of Christmas food. The holiday weight-gain that everyone dreads does not come about from one meal. At least for me, I know the guilty culprit for my tight jeans is the month long time of holiday baking. Just as every country and culture has its variations on the Christmas meal, each culture also has its own Christmas baking traditions, ranging from bourbon balls and cookies in the U.S. to stollen in Germany, panettone in Italy, and plum pudding in England. Personally, I think the ultimate Christmas baked-good is Christmas cake. A tradition in England and the Commonwealth countries, Christmas cake is fruitcake. Bear with me and hold your gag reflex. This fruitcake is not like those overly sweet congealed bricks that most Americans think of. No, the traditional English Christmas cake is a round cake made with dried (and sometimes candied) fruit and walnuts with a healthy dose of brandy added to the batter. After the cake is baked (and it is always baked well in advance of Christmas), more brandy is poured over the top and left to soak in. The whole thing is then covered with marzipan, using a thin spreading of apricot jam as the 'glue' to make it stick. Finally, the cake is coated in a thick royal icing.
I remember my mom making our Christmas cake every year as a child. My favorite part was when she would ice it and then decorate it with little figurines of Christmas trees and snowmen--the top of the cake looked like a miniature a snowy Christmas landscape. Although I hated Christmas cake as a kid, I certainly loved licking the icing bowl after my mom was done frosting the cake. When I was a teenager, I finally started to like the flavor of the Christmas cake, and I began to actually help her in the baking process. Now it is an annual ritual of ours the weekend after Thanksgiving. We bake two cakes side by side--one stays with us, and the other we send to my aunt and uncle in England. This year, I baked a third cake to give as a Christmas greeting to a fellow transplanted Commonwealth family--you just can't find this type of cake in the States.
Come December every year, I begin to crave the sweet-tart flavor and the moist chewy texture of Christmas cake, but in the end, it is not the cake itself that makes it "Christmas cake". No, it is the fact that my mom and I bake it together, as a special treat for Christmas. Should the world run out of walnuts and raisins (dear God, I hope not) and we were to bake a chocolate chiffon cake instead, the fact that we were in the kitchen together, listening to Bing Crosby's White Christmas album (yes, I give you permission to laugh), and probably giggling uncontrollably at ourselves while trying to fish accidentally dropped egg shells out of the batter, is truly what makes a "Christmas cake". I hate to get all Victor Turner-ish, but it is the ritual that really makes Christmas food what it is.
With the current economic situation, the true meaning behind Christmas food is especially poignant. The Christmas meal does not have to be a feast fit for kings, but rather, a simple, convivial, joyful and trustful act. Lest we remember, as M.F.K. Fisher said, "the breaking of bread, the sharing of salt, the common dipping into one bowl, mean more than a satisfaction of a need."
Happy Christmas and best dishes to all. "
...six geese a-laying
five gold(en) rings
four calling birds
three French hens
two turtle doves
and a partridge in a pear tree.
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