# Christmas foods you get a nostalgic for.
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-foods-you-get-a-nostalgic-for/607118
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [December 22, 2011, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-foods-you-get-a-nostalgic-for/607118 "2011-12-22T21:09:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 16
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Kimballkid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimballkid)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2011, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-foods-you-get-a-nostalgic-for/607118/1 "2011-12-22T21:09:44Z")
What are some Christmas foods, whether homemade by someone or store-bought, that you get nostalgic for?
Mine would be Grandma K’s baked beans. She made them for Thanksgiving and Easter as well as Christmas. After she died someone tried to make them, but it just wasn’t the same as I’m pretty sure, if there ever was a written recipe, grandma strayed from it long ago or the recipe was all in her head.
Sorry if this is a duplicate thread, I didn’t see another like it.
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### Author:  [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2011, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-foods-you-get-a-nostalgic-for/607118/2 "2011-12-22T22:19:27Z")
Aunt Beulah’s black walnut cake, and Aunt Lola’s orange cake – made from scratch, of course. Aunt Lola also made divinity, but I never developed a taste for divinity. Mom made bundt cakes at Christmas, using some kind of liqueur – Amaretto, maybe. Yum.
Grandma and grandpa gave all us grandkids our very own box of chocolate-covered cherries. You’d think a whole box would last more than a day or two, but nope.
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### Author:  [@VOW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VOW)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2011, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-foods-you-get-a-nostalgic-for/607118/3 "2011-12-22T22:35:06Z")
Momma made lace cookies. I think they were a Karo syrup recipe.
I could probably find the recipe and make them, but …it wouldn’t be the same.
~VOW
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### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2011, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-foods-you-get-a-nostalgic-for/607118/4 "2011-12-22T23:01:44Z")
Christmas cookies from Kroger. They had red & green jelly candies in each cookie. IIRC they were shortbread cookies. I bought a couple boxes a year for at least a decade.
Can’t find them anymore. ☹
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### Author:  [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)
#### Post date: [December 22, 2011, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-foods-you-get-a-nostalgic-for/607118/5 "2011-12-22T23:31:03Z")
Found a picture of those shortbread Christmas cookies. Still couldn’t find any to buy.
> **[Shortbread cookies - traditional Czech Christmas and wedding cookies....](https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/shortbread-christmas-cookies-gm108506257-14130213)**
>
> Shortbread cookies - traditional Czech Christmas and wedding cookies. Shallow dof,
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### Author:  [@PapSett](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PapSett)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2011, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-foods-you-get-a-nostalgic-for/607118/6 "2011-12-23T00:00:36Z")
My grandma made these thin, crispy cookies with whole peanuts in them that were sooooo good. I have tried making them off her recipe but it wasn’t the same.
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### Author:  [@Maiira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maiira)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2011, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-foods-you-get-a-nostalgic-for/607118/7 "2011-12-23T01:04:50Z")
Candy cane cookies and Russian tea cakes. If I don’t have those, it just ain’t Christmas.
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### Author:  [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2011, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-foods-you-get-a-nostalgic-for/607118/8 "2011-12-23T01:29:22Z")
Mom’s sugar cookies. She call them fat cookies. She would stuff them with some homemade preserves, Strawberry, Plums, etc.
My GF and her family like hard and crunchy cookies as do most of the people around here. I like cookies soft and chewy.
And I do miss her apple pie. But that is a fall thing more than a Xmas thing.
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### Author:  [@Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oslo_Ostragoth)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2011, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-foods-you-get-a-nostalgic-for/607118/9 "2011-12-23T05:36:28Z")
My Grandma’s molasses bar cookies. Haven’t had them in many years.
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### Author:  [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2011, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-foods-you-get-a-nostalgic-for/607118/10 "2011-12-23T13:14:54Z")
Grossmom’s big, soft, sour cream sugar cookies.
Grandma’s chocolate rum balls. (Emphasis on rum. I swear I got drunk on these more than once as a kid.)
Those wonderful potato rolls Mom used to buy - not just for Christmas, but for whatever reason they go with Christmas dinner in my memories.
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### Author:  [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2011, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-foods-you-get-a-nostalgic-for/607118/11 "2011-12-23T13:25:34Z")
My grandma’s skillet cookies. I’ve seen recipes but they are not the same as what she made. She probably threw a little something extra in like bacon grease.
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### Author:  [@Kimballkid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimballkid)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2011, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-foods-you-get-a-nostalgic-for/607118/12 "2011-12-23T15:11:47Z")
> [@flodnak](#):
>
> Grandma’s chocolate rum balls. (Emphasis on rum. I swear I got drunk on these more than once as a kid.)
I made rum balls once for an office christmas party. When I was looking for a recipe, I didn’t realize they weren’t baked or cooked in any way so none of the alcohol gets cooked off. Pretty much like taking a shot of rum that way. They didn’t go over too well with this crew though.
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### Author:  [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2011, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-foods-you-get-a-nostalgic-for/607118/13 "2011-12-23T15:19:27Z")
Oh my god, you made me think of struffoli. I don’t know how long it’s been, decades for sure. I have got to make me some struffoli.
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### Author:  [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2011, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-foods-you-get-a-nostalgic-for/607118/14 "2011-12-23T15:19:31Z")
Grandmom’s butter cookies. Recipe has been handed down, but they aren’t even close to right after my mom or aunt bakes them.
Although, my grandmother insisted that a cheap, small, gas oven was best and certain refrigeration methods would do them in; my mother and aunt swear this isn’t the reason their cookies don’t cut it.
My grandmother would put the whole batch in the fridge together for x am’t of time before cooking, then bake with a small gas oven. She swore this was key.
My cousin, who lives in a small row-home in Philly where I grew up, gets closest to the recipe, because she’s using the same water and an older gas oven.
Apparently, the water, humidity of fridge and oven type (\*gas is more moist) matter. ARE YOU LISTENING, MOTHER? 😃
\*Burning gas creates water vapor.
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### Author:  [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2011, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-foods-you-get-a-nostalgic-for/607118/15 "2011-12-23T15:24:19Z")
I’m sure I’ve posted this before, but what the hell… When I was a kid we had a traditional Polish dinner at my grandmother’s house on Christmas Eve (Wygilia), consisting of the following courses:
[Kapusta](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapusta)(cooked shredded cabbage with salt pork and mushrooms)
Pea soup
White barszcz (soup made from fermented rye)
Pierogi (three varieties – cheese, cabbage and prune)
The first three courses were served over boiled potatoes with sauteed onions.
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### Author:  [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)
#### Post date: [December 23, 2011, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/christmas-foods-you-get-a-nostalgic-for/607118/16 "2011-12-23T15:30:05Z")
Fruitcakes.
Everyone jokes about them. I’ve never had a ‘real’ one; just the crappy store-bought ones everyone jokes about. But even with the bizarre chemical flavour of the mutant cherries, I like them. I can’t remember the last time I had one. ISTR I bought a whisky-soaked one for myself in the '80s. Nobody I know makes them. Nobody I know gets the super-market kind and says, ‘God, I _hate_ these! You want it?’ I keep meaning to buy myself one from the monks that famously make them, but I’m always too busy and forget. Ditto making my own, after seeing one made on an episode of _Good Eats_.