What's your traditional 'special' festive food?

I was posting over on Kev's stollen thread, and the variety of nationalities we have here got me to thinking... what food do you traditionally have around at Christmas? I don't mean Christmas lunch, but what do you stock up on and maybe have as snacks during the festive period? I don't want to alienate any religions, so if you're Jewish or any other religion and have 'special' festive foods around this time of year, let us know!

I'm lucky. We have a variety of different cultures that we can get Christmas foods for. We have friends in Germany and Switzerland who always used to send stuff over, but now we can usually buy it in supermarkets (great having a German supermarket in town!).

So, for me....

Our main tradition is to have nuts (hazelnuts, brazil nuts and walnuts... maybe pistachio too) lying around in bowls with hand nutcrackers - the hinged type that you often pinch yourself with! That, and satsumas. I know some have clementines and I think it's sorta more traditional, but I'm not so keen. Odd, I know!

We also tend to have Terry's chocolate orange as a treat. And as I said, we'll have German stuff like stollen, lebkuchen and pfeffernüsse. Oh, and we might well have panettone. Of course, we have a traditional Christmas cake (fruit cake drowned in alcohol, with marzipan and icing, decorated with piping and a big bow around it). Oh, and we usually have those rolled sweet things which are good with ice cream. I think they're called ginger snaps - but not the biscuit! It's like a Chinese pancake, but crispy, and rolled into a tube.

Here's a pic of our dresser.... sorry the cake isn't finished yet!

 

Whatever my mom makes.

 

Pretty much identical to Retro, he's got all the UK standards in there. Often some savoury snacks like baked cheesy bread/pastry things as well.

Plenty of alcohol, naturally.

 

enchiladas and tamales.

 

Good point, Alchy! Generally that will be generic stuff, mind you. Those cheese buttons you get, bowls of Hula Hoops etc. Ooh, and I love cheese straws!

Ooh, the Mexican touch sounds nice! I'd love a bit of that, actualy!! Too bad you can't get anything decent in England, really. Hmm, is it hard to make yourself? Do you need anything special?

 

Add to that mince pies, cheese straws, 'old fashioned tarts' - a family recipe that is basically jam/marmalade tarts with a coconut topping, Mulled Wine and Christmas Pudding.

Oh, and Egg Nog.

 

Cheese straws! I was worried people would mistake it for cheese strings, which are... different.

Also, home made mince pies, how could I have forgotten?

Retro, those metal drinks vessels, maybe you'd call them flagons... Do they see much use? If so, for what?

 

On Boxing day (this is English tradition, not American) we have a big buffet with various cold meats (typically roasted joints of meat like Gammon - which you cannot buy here in the USA seemly, just water pumped pre-cooked slabs of salt - roast beef, haslet (a spiced pork cold cut thing), beef tongue). Also, pork pie (a cold (previously baked) pie containing pork with a slight jelly lining then suet pastry), celery sticks, tossed salad, coleslaw, potato salad, pasta salad, baked potatoes, various chips and dips, various pickles and chutneys, cold boiled eggs.. I'm probably missing a few. [EDIT: pickled beetroot!]

In England (and I believe ex-colonies such as Canada, Australia and New Zealand), Boxing Day is the day after Christmas and in my family is an extension of Christmas day except that the buffet replaces the big Roast Turkey dinner.

Damn. There is no Christmas like a British Christmas. Christmas here in the USA pales in comparison, I think because Thanks Giving is such a big hoohar.

 

Just out of curiosity, what are the ingredients for your potato salad?

The best recipe I know is the simplest: baby potatoes boiled and chopped, cooled, then mixed with mayonnaise and chives. Delicious.

 

Those are pewter tankards, Alchy ;-) They're purely decorative as it turns out pewter isn't too good for you!! Well, the old ones - they had a high lead content.

They were used traditionally for beers in pubs. My Grandparents ran a pub so they might have come from there, or my parents picked them up in antique shops etc. I might try one one day, see what it's like heh.

Yeah, I can't believe I forgot mince pies! On Christmas day we come down to open presents and have home made mince pies and sausage rolls for breakfast. Yummy! Christmas pud too, of course! Mulled wine is great and we used to have it where I worked ages ago, but not really at home. Shame

Isn't gammon just ham cut a particular way, i.e. thick? I'm sure a butcher would do that.

Boxing Day is similar for us, but we generally use leftovers (e.g. turkey and stuffing) from Christmas Day, just more cold meats and Branston pickle or chutneys.

Yeah, it certainly seems that Christmas isn't such a big deal in American... and I'm sure it is because of Thanksgiving as you say.

 

Here in Brazil, is pretty much the same as in Portugal.

 

Got to love the culteral stuff around here, very cool to know what everyone does.

So far nothing here, everyone has a cold of some kind...

 

Jon's dad's cooking rapes everyone's cooking here.

hands down.

 

FAIL.

 

This better not be a fail because he's a dude. Hopefully it's a fail because your actually the best cook ever.

 

Well, I always have a Cherry Cheesecake on special days, like Birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc.

 

Chestnuts roasted on an open fire.

 

Hmm spitfire, coffee liqueur, Brandy snaps, guess who and those little sausages wrapped in bacon and pretty much everything that Taucias said

 

Oh yeah, biscuits and gravy is almost always the breakfast for Christmas here.