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?Traditional? Cuisine

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by protiusx

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This might be a weird idea for a posting but I as I have been reading a lot of British writers lately I have become enamored with British culture and especially their cuisine. Now my family will be spending Christmas day with my parents and as such we will be having a VERY traditional American Christmas (i.e. Prime Rib with mashed potatoes, cooked baby carrots, green bean casserole, home made biscuits, pumpkin pie (or apple) ice cream and coffee).
I really wanted to make a British Christmas pudding and have every one try it but no one in my family seems willing to give it a try. You see when you say ?Pudding? to an American we think of vanilla, chocolate, or tapioca but definitely NOT meat. So in my research I found all kinds of cool recipes from England, Wales and Scotland that I would like to try.
Now I realize that even in this country there are a lot of differences in what one might refer to as a ?traditional? Christmas. So please, give us what is considered Traditional in your area/region/country.

26 replies

by jamesrl

Turkey is by far the favorite, followed by ham, and goose. I've never heard of prime rib for Christmas, but I've never spent Christmas anywhere but here. I have only had turkey or goose for Christmas.

As for deserts, mincemeat pie(which I will get to later) and/or Christmas pudding, along with fruits pies.

Mincemeat these days has no meat, and hasn't had for centuries. I heard an interesting discussion on CBC radio(which is also carried on NPR sometimes) about the origins - seems meat was once part of the recipe but now is non-existant. Mincemeat for the past couple of hundred years is currents, raisins, and other fruits. Christmas pudding - home made the way mom made it - was like a cross between dark christmas cake and mincemeat - full of dried fruit and dark brandy. It was steamed until it was moist and hot. Hard sauce was a caramel sauce with Brandy - yummmy.

James

by montgomery gator

Sounds like an oxymoron to me. Ontario is so far north, it is not even in the United States. I have been to the eastern corner of Ontario (Ottawa and surrounding countryside), and I did not see anything "Southern" about Ontario. Being from Florida, living in Alabama, and having a grandfather from South Carolina, I think I have a good idea what "Southern" means, and it is not Ontario.

by protiusx

I feel a song comming on... If a red neck goes to a family reunion to pick up chicks then what does a white neck do? ;o)

by jamesrl

Can you have a "southern" part of Alaska, or England or Scotland?

Actually when you leave Detroit to go to Windsor, and cross the bridge, you are headed south(South Southeast to be exact). Seattle is farther north than Toronto.

You've seen a small corner of a huge province. There is no set line for Southern Ontario - though the government does distinguish Northern from Southern by electoral district - northern districts getting some tax breaks and being eligible for certain economic development programs. Generally south of Lake Simcoe or highway 17 is "south".

The big difference is southern Ontario(or more correctly South West Ontario) has 80% of the population, is heavily industrialized. Northern Ontario is resource based -lumber, mining etc.

Ottawa is kinda half way - some parts are more like the north, others more like the south. Its in the Canadian shield so lots of rocks and pine trees which is not typical of South Western Ontario.

Toronto actually has the most northern tip of a "southern" ecosystem called Black Oak Savannah. It can be seen in High Park.

Its about 200 miles north of Toronto until you get to any real wilderness. Its only slightly farther to Wheeling West Virginia from Toronto than it is from Toronto to Ottawa, and Thunder Bay is twice as far to get to as Wheeling.

As for copyrights I am only half kidding. There was a recent dispute regarding a whisky maker in Cape Breton Nova Scotia, who labels a whisky Glen Breton. The scottish whisky distillers association is suing claiming that the Cape Breton distillers can't use the word Glen. You can't stick a pin in a map of Nova Scotia without hitting a Glen - its the word Valley in Gaelic, and there are glens everywhere, including the glen where the distillery resides and names itself after.

Anyway the vast majority of Ontarians consider themselves "Southern" Ontarians and we live south of the states of Washington, Montana and North Dakota. Toronto is 43 degrees North, and Northern California's border is about 41 degrees North.

I have to say that this week, after a freak cold snap, I wish I was in the US "South" instead of Southern Ontario.

James

by salamander

I was introduced to Turducken a couple of years ago, by some friends in the South. Apparently, a turkey is stuffed with a duck, which is stuffed with a chicken. It is something far beyond my culinary skill, but it was an interesting curiousity.

Where I'm from, we generally do the standard turkey or ham, mashed potatoes, deviled eggs, green bean casserole, biscuits, cranberries, meatballs, seven-layer salad, pumpkin pie, cheesecake, and usually fudge. Guarantees a food coma for days.

by protiusx

One of the ladies I work with asked me to bring her (I like to hunt) a duck so that her husband can make this for christmas. I has never heard of this before but I geuss she'll let me know how it tastes.

by salamander

...is that they are sometimes deep fried. The one I experienced was not, but I suppose one has to use the deep fryer for something in the dead of winter!

Honestly, I thought it was okay, but I wouldn't want it every year.

by bfilmfan

I would sorely be tempted to say "Well listen to Jeff Foxworthy's Redneck Christmas," but as a Southerner myself, that would be tempting the people of South Georgia to invade Florida just to find the traiorous Atlanta bastard, but I digress....

Avoid any Scottish recipes for haggis, unless you have a cast iron stomach. I've managed to avoid eating it by claiming it isn't Kosher and highly suspect that a number of my Scottish-descended friends have wanted to use the same excuse!

In the South in my home, we have often done as yourself and combined interesting menu choices during the holidays. I've had Eastern european relatives bringing goulashes and Lajkota relatives bringing corn and "guwa bi mnuna," which means and is bread, a stone ground bread.

I saw a recipe book a few years back, which I wish I had purchased, which was loaded with recipes for holiday meals from across the world. I made a pretty good figgie pudding a few years back from a recipe I found here:
http://www.clevelandseniors.com/home/rec-fpud.htm

The only holiday tradition that I can tell you for sure that my family has to have is lots of food, family and friends and a celebration that we are all together.

Have a great time experimenting with new traditions!

by Member 32432960

Well - traditionally now it's Turkey as this is the only thing big enough to feed a large family of kids, grannies, aunties, etc. Served with roast spuds (potatoes), mashed spuds, little sausages, stuffing (bread-based herby/oniony stuff) and various veggies including Brussels sprouts which - for me - always result in extreme wind on Boxing day. Usually prepared by the women while the men go down the pub and served up around 3pm in HUGE quantites. Afters is Cristmas Pudding which is a flour/suet/fruit/spice pudding with a specific gravity of about that of brick. This is either served with brandy butter (exactly what it sounds like) or custard.

The women then wash up and the menfolk sleep.

During the evening, the leftover cold Turkey is eaten with Bubble-and-squeak, a fried mixture of cold mashed spuds and Brussells (more wind - Florida, you don't know what wind is!).

If you want an explanation of any of the finer nuances of English Cristmas cuisine, I would suggest that you ask on an empty stomach.

Neil

I don't even like turkey but I'm going to my brother's and I don't have any choice!

p.p.s.

Joke over?

Delia's recipe for Christmas pudding for NEXT year. It's too late now as they need to mature for weeks...

Delia is one of the UK's top TV chefs and is well known for traditional food.

http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/r_0000001234.asp

It's good - we've tried it.

by protiusx

I read the recipe for the Christmas pudding and with all the alcohol I was wondering if it is something for the whole family or just the adults?

by Member 32432960

Yes, the kids eat it but it's pretty booze-free by the time it's steamed for hours. Christmas Pudding is very widespread across all of England and everybodies' recipe is much along the lines of Delias recipe. You'll need to make it around October for next Christmas.

We do have meat puddings - Steak and Kidney Pudding is a rich stew of beef steak and kidney in gravy steamed inside a suet pastry case. It's probably nearly as traditional as fish and chips. Neither are eaten at Christmas!

Traditional Christmas also has Mince Pies made with mincemeat which is so-called because it USED to contain minced pork, fruit and spices but is nowadays a jammy/spicy/fruity filling. The mince pie is VERY traditional and is about 2-bite sized and offered to guests.

The Scots tend to clebrate Hogmanay - New Year - more so than the rest of us who celebrate Christmas Day for the major holiday pig-out (a Brit term for eating so much you EXPLODE). I have an idea what the Scots eat but we won't go any further into a cuisine that invented both the Haggis and the Deep-Fried Mars Bar and have the highest incidence of coronary problems in the World.

Neil

by jamesrl

The thing about a good Christmas pudding is thats its very rich. The kids only get a little serving.

I looked at that recipe and I've never seen one with stout or barley wine - not even sure where I would get barley wine in Canada. Wonder if the recipe would suffer from subtituting more brandy.

BTW when I grew up, Christmas cake from those who really knew how to make it, was a very special thing. There was a cheesecloth over the cake and daily a dose of rum was poured - dark rum for dark cake etc. I loved that cake, but very few match it.

James

by nd_it

Is the normal for our family, along with mashed potatoes and gravy, dressing, sweet potatoes, a couple different salads, and of course plenty of deserts to choose from, either pumking or apple pie and three types of bars. Hhhhmmmmmm good.

by Member 32432960

Delia Smith is well-known in the UK for good recipes so this one is worth a try. Barley wine is a very strong beer (9%)and you could replace it with more stout or any strong-tasting beer.

My grandmother's recipe for Christmas Cake was a very rich fruit cake with small holes pierced in the top. she poured regular doses of brandy over the cake in the weeks leading up to Christmas. We lads - honest, I was little once - got a minute piece and pretended to like it!

It's a regular thing in the UK to see a father stagger back from the off-licence (liquor store) with enough booze to float a small ship and then say - and mean it - "Christmas - if it wasn't for the kids, we wouldn't do it".

Memories of Christmas afternnoon as a child "Shush, your Dad/Uncle/Grandad's asleep".

by jamesrl

I enjoyed the light rum fruitcakes from the start...it took some years to appreciate the dark rum cakes.....

We used to serve christmas pudding with whipped cream for the kids...or sometimes vanilla ice cream - makes it more palatable.

In Canada, we combine English and Scottish traditions. We have some booze at Christmas, but really get into it at New Years. I'm of Scottish ancestry on both sides, but there was enough English influence over Canada over the years to meld some of the traditions together.

James

by Member 32432960

Is custard unique to the UK? Ideally milk or cream and egg yolks flavoured with vanilla and sugar and cooked to the consistency of double cream? Unfortunately, nearly always made from a powder plus milk or water.

Custard is poured over all the famous English puddings - jam roly-poly, spotted dick, treacle pudding, suet apple dumplings, rhubarb crumble, etc.

I put on 4 pounds while typing this!!

By the way, I don't want to rain on the Yanks' Parade, but the Romans invented Apple Pie in about 80 BC. :)

by protiusx

My wife and anyone who has known me since I was ?a lil blighter? or ?a wee lad? can tell you, I LOVE apples. I use to eat apples like people smoked cigarettes. No lie I would eat three to four apples a day.
Apple pie now, that was perfected by ?me dear mum? and enhanced by my wife who I am convinced is trying to kill me with fine food. I terrible way to die but someone has to do it. If the Romans invented Apple Pie then God Bless them and pass me another slice! When I was little my mom use to make home made apple sauce, apple pie and apple crisp and then top the whole thing off with ice cream. Wait? I had to wipe the drool from my mouth. In the word of Homer Simpson ?UUmmmmm, Pie.?

by montgomery gator

Back in 1990, when I was living and working in London, UK, on a work-exchange program, I spent the Christmas Holiday with some relatives in Hucknall, Nottingham (where my grandfather was born). They had Roast Beef and Yorkshire Pudding, with the drippings from the Roast Beef on top of the Yorkshire Pudding. It was quite good. Yorkshire Pudding seemed to me to consist mainly of dough, and went quite well with the drippings from the Roast Beef. A friend of my cousins in Nottingham told me he was partial to Guiness Stout, because it enabled him to make "wonderful farts", so that seems to go along with the other postings indicating that food gave them winds, which I guess seems to be an English tradition.

by protiusx

Before dinner we feasted on wheat chips and cheese ball, olives, deviled eggs, celery with cheese, fudge, brownies, chocolate truffles and assorted chocolates. For dinner we had rib roast, mashed potatoes, croissants, broccoli, and fruit salad. For desert we had pumpkin pie with whipped cream, some French pastry that looked like a giant jelly stuffed pretzel and loads of coffee (Being from Seattle we need our coffee!).

by montgomery gator

This reminds me of a quote from the Book of Armaments, regarding the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch with your list of what you feasted upon:

"And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, 'O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade that, with it, Thou mayest blow Thine enemies to tiny bits in Thy mercy'. And the Lord did grin, and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals and fruit bats... And the Lord spake, saying, 'First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin. Then, shalt thou count to three. No more. No less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, nor either count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then, lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who, being naughty in My sight, shall snuff it."

by protiusx

I am going to have to rent that and see it again! The only problem is that my wife (not being the connoisseur of British humor) doesn’t appreciate Monty Python as much as I do.
"Sir would you like an after dinner mint?"

by montgomery gator

See the Monty Python Spam Skit for another traditional meal:

"Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam; spam bacon sausage and spam; spam egg spam spam bacon and spam; spam sausage spam spam bacon spam tomato and spam;
...or Lobster Thermidor a Crevette with a mornay sauce served in a Provencale manner with shallots and aubergines garnished with truffle pate, brandy and with a fried egg on top and spam."

http://www.detritus.org/spam/skit.html

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