Christmas dinner

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
This article is about meal. For the song by Peter, Paul and Mary, see Peter, Paul and Mommy.
turkey
, is commonly consumed in English speaking countries.
Many traditions enjoy dessert after the main course. Here, a Christmas pudding is set aflame after brandy has been poured on it.

Christmas dinner is a meal traditionally eaten at Christmas. This meal can take place any time from the evening of Christmas Eve to the evening of Christmas Day itself.[1] The meals are often particularly rich and substantial, in the tradition of the Christian feast day celebration, and form a significant part of gatherings held to celebrate the arrival of Christmastide.[2] In many cases, there is a ritual element to the meal related to the religious celebration, such as the saying of grace.[3]

The actual meal consumed varies in different parts of the world with regional cuisines and local traditions. In many parts of the world, particularly former British colonies, the meal shares some connection with the English Christmas dinner involving roasted meats and pudding of some description. The Christmas pudding and Christmas cake evolved from this tradition.

In countries without a lengthy Christian tradition, the Christmas meal may be more heavily influenced by popular culture. An example of this is Japan, where a KFC takeaway meal is traditionally consumed.[4]

Asia

India

Indian people cook a variety of foods, including

sweets like kheer.[5] Long established Christian communities such as Goan Catholics have pork dishes and beef dishes as part of their main course of their Christmas dinner. These include pork vindaloo and sarapatel. For dessert, a dish called bebinca is popular.[6]
The largest Christian community in India,
gooseberries or other fruit, are consumed.[8]

Japan

Japanese-style Christmas cakes in a display case at Nijiya Market

Japanese Christmas cake, a white sponge cake covered with cream and decorated with strawberries, is often consumed, and Stollen cake, made locally, is widely available. A successful advertising campaign in the 1970s made eating at KFC around Christmas a national custom. Its chicken meals are so popular during the season that stores take reservations months in advance.[9]

Lebanon

Lebanese Christians celebrate Christmas dinners. The feast, usually on the night of the 24th and lunch on the 25th, is a big one. The family gets together at both meals, and some have the leftovers from the dinner prior to the lunch the next day. The traditional offering for Christmas is sugar-coated almonds. Roast turkey is the most common choice of meal.[10] Roasted duck, Lebanese salad (Tabbouleh) and pastries such as honey cake are common. Beirut celebrates Christmas by conducting glamorous and big Christmas parties. Western-style poinsettias, community Christmas trees, and Christmas lights are very popular.

Philippines

lechón
as the centerpiece

Christmas dinner in the

Filipino
culture of familial (and, by extension, communal) unity.

Common traditional dishes served for the main course in the noche buena include:

soda, wine, beer, alcoholic drinks, and fruit juices.[12][13][14][15][16][17]

This focus on the family is common to all Filipino socio-economic classes and ethnic groups that observe Christmas. Most – if not all – members from the branches or extended families in a clan are expected to partake of the

OFWs
, are highly encouraged to return home for the occasion, as it is the most important Filipino Christian holiday of the year. Most families prefer to exchange Christmas presents right after dinner, contrary to the Western custom of opening presents on Christmas morning.

Europe

Austria

In

chocolate mousse
.

Czech Republic

A traditional Christmas meal in the Czech Republic is fried carp and potato salad which are eaten during Christmas dinner on the evening of 24 December.[19] It is often accompanied by a fish soup prepared from carp leftovers (head or bones), a traditional Czech mushroom dish Kuba or Černá omáčka ("Black sauce") made from dried fruits, nuts, wine and gingerbread. Many households also prepare a great variety of unique Christmas biscuits to offer to visitors. These are prepared many days before the feast and take a long time to decorate. It is also common to hang for children wrapped chocolate sweets on the Christmas tree as decoration.

Denmark

Danish Christmas dinner

In Denmark, the traditional Christmas meal served on 24 December consists, according to one representative study, of duck (66% of households surveyed), roast pork with crackling (43%), turkey (8%), or goose (7%). The figures total more than 100% because it was found that some families prepare more than one kind of meat for Christmas dinner.[20] The meat is served with boiled potatoes (some of which are caramelized, some roasted), red cabbage, and gravy. The main course is followed by a dessert of Risalamande, rice pudding served with cherry sauce or strawberry sauce, often with a whole almond hidden inside. The lucky finder of the almond is entitled to an extra present, the almond gift. Christmas drinks are Gløgg (mulled wine) and traditional Christmas beers, specially brewed for the season and which usually have a high alcohol content.

Finland

Main article: Joulupöytä
Finnish Christmas dinner

Joulupöytä (translated "Christmas table") is the name of the traditional food board served at Christmas in Finland, similar to the Swedish smörgåsbord. It contains many different dishes, most of them typical for the season. The main dish is usually a large Christmas ham, which is eaten with

glögi in Finnish), which may be either alcoholic or non-alcoholic.[22]

Germany

In Germany, the primary Christmas dishes are roast goose and roast carp, although suckling pig, duck, or venison may also be served. Typical side dishes include roast potatoes and various forms of cabbage such as kale, Brussels sprouts, and red cabbage. In some regions, the Christmas dinner is traditionally served on Christmas Day rather than Christmas Eve. In this case, dinner on Christmas Eve is a simpler affair, consisting of sausages (such as Bockwurst or Wiener) and potato salad. Sweets and Christmas pastries are all but obligatory and include marzipan, gingerbread (Lebkuchen), several types of bread, and various fruitcakes and fruited loaves of bread such as Christstollen and Dresdener Stollen.[23]

Italy

Main article: Christmas in Italy
Panettone

In

torrone, panforte, struffoli, mustacciuoli, bisciola, cavallucci, veneziana, pizzelle, zelten, or others, depending on the regional cuisine.[27]
Christmas on 25 December is celebrated with a family lunch, also consisting of different types of pasta and meat dishes, cheese and local sweets.

Portugal

Traditionally in Portugal, the family gets together around the table on Christmas Eve to eat boiled dried-salted cod accompanied with boiled cabbage or greens varying with what they have in the garden leftover, boiled potatoes, boiled onions, boiled eggs, and chickpeas. Sometimes a simple dressing is made with onions, garlic, or parsley. This meal is accompanied by generous amounts of olive oil.

There are variations across the country and, traditionally, turkey[28] and the famous portuguese bacalhau. A lot of reasons also have octopus (sometimes also pork in some regions) is served for lunch on the 25th.[clarification needed]

Spain

In Spanish, Christmas Eve is called "Nochebuena,"[29] literally translated as "Good Night." In Spain, it is celebrated with a large family feast, which is eaten late in the evening and can last a couple of hours; some families attend midnight mass before or after the meal. In Spain, Christmas Eve is a time for celebrating in neighbourhood bars and cafes and around the table with family and friends. It is a time for gift exchanges or Santa Claus. However, it is mainly performed on Epiphany, which occurs on 6 January.

In medieval

Argentinian cuisine), neula and clarea (also called "white sangria", similar to hippocras).[30]

Sweden

Main article:
Julbord
The Swedish Julbord sometimes features decorated pig heads.

The Swedish Christmas dinner or Julbord

Janssons frestelse. Finally, a cheese plate and dessert plate are served. The most popular dessert is rice pudding (risgrynsgröt) with a whole almond hidden inside. The finder of the almond is expected to get married before next Christmas. In some homes, the courses above are served like a buffet where all family members can pick and take the food in no dish order.[citation needed
]

Common drinks are Christmas beer, julmust and snaps.[citation needed]

United Kingdom

Christmas dinner in the

brandy butter, custard or cream) or trifle.[citation needed] It is estimated that nine million turkeys are consumed at Christmas in the United Kingdom. This represents a halving of consumed turkeys in the past twenty five years as younger adults opt for alternatives.[35]
Pork, beef, chicken, goose, and duck are also popular.

Christmas dinner

In

peacock and swan.[36]
The
yule log are also popular.[44] By the 21st century, some British citizens were changing their Christmas dinner traditions with a growing number selecting vegetarian and vegan versions of traditional UK Christmas meals.[45][46][47][48]

North America

Canada

In English-speaking Canada, Christmas dinner is similar to that of Britain. Traditional Christmas dinner features turkey

butter tarts, and shortbread
, which are traditionally baked before the holidays and served to visiting friends at Christmas and New Year parties, as well as on Christmas Day.

In French-speaking Canada, traditions may be more like those of France. (See Réveillon.) Other ethnic communities may continue to use old-world traditions as well.

United States

Christmas traditions in the United States have eclectic origins, with predominant ones from the United Kingdom in most states. However, many others traditions are also celebrated, due to many years of influence from

promotional source?] Cookies of many kinds have been present in America for hundreds of years and often are either gingerbread, snickerdoodles, or sugar cookies
baked throughout December and fashioned into many shapes and figures.

Fruitcake is similar to the traditional British Christmas pudding; however, it serves more as a national joke, often lampooned as an unwanted Christmas gift.[52] The comic Johnny Carson once quipped, "The worst Christmas gift is fruitcake… There is only one fruitcake in the entire world, and people keep sending it to each other, year after year.".[53] Many foreigners are skeptical of this fact, but indeed there is some truth to it: Manitou Springs, Colorado, holds an annual event in which unwanted fruitcakes are tossed in a contest to see who can throw the "gift" the farthest, with the locals building trebuchets and contraptions that are forbidden to have an electric motor.[54] An elderly gentleman from Tecumseh, Michigan once made national news when he presented his countryman with the fact that he still had a fruitcake his great-grandmother baked in 1878, and thus was over 130 years old. As of 2018, the same fruitcake is believed to be still at large in the care of one of his grandchildren, proving Mr. Carson had a point.[55]

Alcohol and cocktails (alcoholic and non-alcoholic) of all kinds are staples for both Christmas parties and family gatherings, where harder drinking is done amongst adults and youngsters usually get served soft drinks or a non-alcoholic version of what their parents drink, drinks like the

planter's punch, Kentucky bourbon and the cocktails that can be made from it, wines from California, Washington, Virginia, or New York of many varying vintages meant to complement the meal prepared by the host, Prosecco from Italy, hard cider from New England and California, wassail, Puerto Rican or Jamaican rum, champagne and other domestic sparkling white wines, and for individual cocktails the alcoholic version of eggnog, the poinsettia, and the Puerto Rican coquito, a cocktail composed of large amounts of coconut milk and rum.[56]

West of the Mississippi, Mexicans have had a great influence over the way the meal is prepared, including roasting corn in its husk and serving biscochitos.[57]

Further regional meals offer diversity.

Charlotte Russe chilled in a bed of Lady Fingers (called just Charlotte) is a traditional dessert, along with pumpkin and pecan pies.[58] In some rural areas, game meats like elk or quail
may grace the table, often prepared with old recipes: similar foodstuffs likely graced the tables of early American settlers on their first Christmases.

An

Italian American meal for Christmas Eve can be the Feast of the Seven Fishes, Panettone and struffoli are favored desserts in such cases.[citation needed
]

It is a common tradition among many

Jewish Americans to eat American Chinese food on Christmas because these are often the only establishments open on the holiday in many cities.[59][60][61]

Oceania

Australia

Christmas dinner, although eaten at lunch time, in Australia is based on the traditional English versions.

passionfruit atop a baked meringue, with whipped cream. Trifle is also a favourite in Australia at Christmas time. Fresh fruits of the season include cherries and mangoes
, plums, nectarine and peaches. Introduced by Italian Australians, panettone is widely available in shops, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne.

South America

Brazil

In Brazil, the Christmas meal is quite a feast, (served in the evening on 24 December) offering large quantities of food, such as a wide variety of dishes which include roast turkey, fresh vegetables, luscious fruits

Brazil nuts. Accompanying these are bowls of colorful rice and platters filled with ham and fresh salad (sometimes cold potato salad is also served). Also, some parts of Brazil feature roast pork or chicken. Red wine, white wine, and apple cider are common alcoholic beverages. Other Christmas items include a variety of desserts such as lemon tart, nuts pie, chocolate cake and also Panettone
.

Peru

On Christmas Eve (

Carols
.

See also

References

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External links

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