Origins of Holiday Foods
For centuries, the celebration of the Christmas holiday has brought people together. And when people gather to celebrate this holiday, there is a wide assortment of food. The English traditionally serve goose, the Germans suckling pigs, and in America the holiday dinner usually centers around a turkey.
Many foods have special meaning at Christmas. Mince meat pies have long been a traditional Christmas food. Many years ago they were made with a mixture of beef, chicken and spices that was meant to symbolize the gifts the Wise Men brought to the manger. The pies were shaped like a manger with an image of the baby Jesus on top. This custom was declared sacrilegious by the Puritans in England, but Puritan settlers in New England refused to give up the pie and began to shape it in the traditional pie shape. Today mincemeat is made of raisins and other dried fruit.
Christmas breads and cakes can be found in most countries that celebrate the holiday. The Danish have Danish Kringle which is an advent bread shaped like a pretzel. The "figgy pudding" that we sing about is actually a rich, dark fruit cake. Panettone is an Italian Christmas bread with raisins and a lemon flavor. The Swedes prepare a braided bread called St. Lucia's crown that is served at dawn on December 13 to signal the beginning of the holiday season. The most spectacular of these cakes is the French Buche de Noel, or Christmas log. This cake resembles the traditional yule log.
Gingerbread has been baked in Europe for centuries. During the 19th century it was romanticized when the Grimm brothers wrote Hansel and Gretel. At Christmas time gingerbread makes its most impressive appearance. The baking of lebkuchen (a gingerbread cookie) and elaborate gingerbread houses is a custom that originated in Germany and quickly caught on in North America.
Families throughout the world prepare special holiday foods together. Baking sugar cookies shaped like holiday symbols and decorated by the family with frosting, sprinkles or candy pieces is a popular tradition in the United States.
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