This is a tangent from a thread in the pit about Christmas music.
So, I’m not asking what you like to eat on Christmas, but what you think of as traditional foods (and especially “main courses”) and what part of the world that tradition comes from.
Roast turkey, stuffing, roast potatoes, pigs in blankets, Brussels sprouts and other veg, gravy. Cranberry sauce with the turkey. We like to have Yorkshire puddings and bread sauce, too. Christmas cake and/or Christmas pudding for dessert, and of course mince pies as a snack.
Goose.
Is sherry/port a food?
On The Big Bang Theory, when Amy wants to make a traditional Victorian Christmas dinner, she makes goose and figgy pudding. I have no idea what “figgy pudding” is, or whether it’s even a dessert or a bread made from drippings, like Yorkshire pudding, but I’ve seen this episode a few times, and nothing in Amy’s menu took me by surprise. So while I may never have experienced a traditional Christmas dinner myself, I guess I must have an idea in my head of what constitutes one, under certain circumstances, like “Victorian England.”
Like the majority of present day Norwegians my “traditional Christmas dinner” is a pork rib roast with crackling: https://scandinavianbutik.com/product/juleribbe-large/ Accompanied by potatoes, lingonberry jam (which I don’t eat) and surkål (cabbage boiled in vinaiger, a quicker and more palatable cousin of sauerkraut). The potatoes and meat should be drizzled with the rendered pork fat, not gravy like some philistines make. And the folks who don’t aim for crisp crackling should lose their citizenship!
Also there should be fatty Christmas pork meat balls and Christmas pork sausage.
I recognize the validity of lutefisk as traditional Christmas dinner, but in my family that is for Christmas Day dinner, rather than Christmas dinner, which is on the 24th.
I know there are Norwegian’s who consider steamed sheep ribs the right thing, but I don’t like thinking about them.
And I won’t say anything about boiled cod.
Oh, and there’s nothing pagan about Norwegian Christmas food. The only truly pagan element is putting out porridge for the barn gnome, a practice that can be directly linked through history and linguistics to Norse and pre-Norse ancestor worship.
Our traditional Christmas Eve dinner has always been spaghetti and meatballs along with a ham. That’s what my Italian grandparents always did and we’ve kept the tradition going. I know some Italians have the Feast of the Seven Fishes. I’m not sure in which region of Italy that is a tradition. I do remember my dad saying that when he was a kid they did have some kind of a fish on Christmas Eve but not 7. It sounded like it was something that no one really liked so it kind of faded away by the time I was born.
If I wasn’t going to have our traditional meal I would expect to have a ham or turkey with the trimmings that usually accompany those two meats.
I recall reading somewhere that Dickens is credited as single-handedly changing the traditional dinner from goose to turkey, although it took about a decade for turkeys to have the majority.
American here, specifically New Hampshire. Traditionally my family had ham at Christmas with mashed potatoes and corn. Dessert was apple pie and chocolate cake.
My birthday is Jan. 7, and we could always find Tofurky in the co-ops, and other such places that stock fake meats, right up until Christmas, and sometimes a few days after, but after was iffy, so we would buy my birthday one a week or so before, until we started buying a case (8) of them every November. Now we even have it for Passover. Tofurky 1st night, quiches or matzah lasagna 2nd night.
For a long time now, our Christmas Eve dinner has been ham, beans, macaroni and cheese (homemade casserole), veggies, corn muffins. Christmas day dinner has been a fairly casual affair, usually a pasta dish.
When I was a child, Christmas day was the big formal dinner and was usually basically the same as Thanksgiving dinner.
German here. There are different traditions for Christmas Eve’s diner and for Christmas day’s lunch:
Christmas Eve’s diner:
Carp (very traditional).
Bockwurst with potato salad.
Meat or cheese fondue.
Raclette (this has become popular in the last 40 years or so).
Christmas Day’s lunch:
A big bird, duck, goose or turkey, mostly with red cabbage and dumplings.
Rabbit.
Game (saddle of venison/deer).
German Christmas sweets specialties are too numerous to post, but first of all numerous kinds of home-made cookies, gingerbread and lots of marzipan (with or without chocolate).
Drinks: Glühwein (mulled wine), Feuerzangenbowle, Eierlikör and, as always, beer.
This one’s hard for me to answer, because the “proper” answer is probably turkey, but in 50 years I don’t think I’ve ever been to an Australian family Christmas where turkey was served. At my grandparents’ house, it was always roast chicken. Nowadays, at my inlaws’ houses, its also always roast chicken. So that’s what I always considered traditional Christmas dinner.
However, apparently about 4 million turkeys are consumed by 25 million Australians at Christmas, which is plenty enough for most people to be sitting down to a turkey roast on the 25th (either hot or cold).
However, what’s definitely an Aussie-specific Christmas tradition is pavlova for dessert. Pav, pav, pav … impossible to escape at this time of year. And trifle. The old English faves of Christmas pudding and mince tarts are definitely around too, but as much for decoration/nostalgia as because anyone wants to actually eat them.
I make a dessert that’s very similar to pavlova for passover, and i adore it. I can see why it’s popular.
I have a bit of a hate on for pavlova, in fact, because its waaay too sweet for me, and it’s everywhere. But I won’t deny I’m unusual in this preference!
It had always been (for my family) ham, potatoes, and a vegetable (usually corn). And stuffed shells.
And usually chips and dip and cheese & pepperoni and crackers to snack on during the day before the big meal.
I’m mostly of Norwegian heritage and my SO is of mostly German heritage; both of us are tired of poultry for holiday meals. Next year, we’ll likely have ham for Christmas dinner. Maybe we’ll do some sort of wurst for Thanksgiving.
NB: I have no affiliation with Hermann Wurst Haus although I have ordered from them before. One of my sisters has a birthday in early October and her husband is of German heritage so one year I had a mini-Oktoberfest sent to them.
Large family meal with turkey or (better)goose and all the trimmings, mashed potatoes, green beans, pies on Christmas Eve, and leftovers or takeout(usually Chinese) on Christmas Day.
Mine is filled with lemon cream, and while the meringue is sweet, of course, the rest is not overwhelmingly sweet. Mine isn’t a real pavlova, either. I call it lemon angel pie.