Family tradition foods for the holidays?

[kijip]

That people may or may not even like?

My dad thinks it is not Christmas eve without his grandmother's oyster stew. I personally would rather starve than eat this particular dish as he prepares it.

Also, my dad makes crabcakes come hell or high water for New Year's day, and usually little ham and cheese toasted sandwiches.

I can see that we will likely keep up the crab cakes and the sandwiches but great grandmother's stew will stay in the back of the recipe book where it belongs. It is awful. Even if I loved oysters, and I don't, trust me it is awful. His brothers and sisters all hate it (he is the only fan) yet they apparently all make it, even though they dislike it.

Thus he eats his stew and I make some other sort of stew/chili or chowder for us.

What is traditional in your family? Do you like it?

[crl]

Shrimp chowder on Christmas Eve--delicious and I had actually forgotten about it (my ds recently outgrew a dairy allergy so we haven't had it for a few years)

Beef fondue on New Years Eve--yummy

Too many kinds of cookies, quick breads and pies to list--all delicious except for the nasty fruit cake cookies that only my dad and dh like

Catherine

[ahisma]

Swedish cardamon braids - everyone loves it! Sometimes we use it for french toast if we've made an excess.

Date nut bread - eh. My dad makes it. It's not bad, but he insists on cooking it in old tomato soup cans that have had BPA leaching out of them for who knows how long. I bought him a set of bread crocks but he's stuck on the cans.

Carrot curry dip. We always have a NYE party and I've made the dip for years. It's one of many dips / apps but is the one thing that's always on the menu.

MIL has traditional foods, but none of us eat them. They consist of leathery baked potatoes and turkey. We all bring random dishes to pass, works great! Nothing has hit the level of traditional though.

[boilermakermom]

No chicken on New Year's Day; you will scratch for money all year. Eat pork and be fat all year. (It's my grandmother's thing..)

Sausage and Saukerkraut

[niccig]

Koeksister http://www.koeksister.us/

My mum is South African and her family have only passed on some food items to their Australian children. It's become a tradition of my mother and aunt making the dough and syrup and responsible for deep frying, while my cousins, my sisters and I plait the dough. I've never made them on my own, but I should try, so I can pass it on to DS.

English Christmas pudding with homemade custard. I can buy the tinned version of the pudding at CostPlus and then I make my own custard. DH and DS don't like it. Fine by me, as more for me.

My grandfather insisted on my grandmother's chicken pie. It was awful.

MIL makes a frozen salad - I think it's cherry pie filling, crushed pineapple and cool whip. I dont' mind it, but calling it a "salad", and serving it on a side plate with the main course, as you would a green lettuce salad, always throws me. Often it's this "salad", potatoes and a meat dish. There's no vegetables to be seen - I dont' consider mashed potatoes to be a nutritious vegetable, not the way I make it with cream cheese, half n half and sticks of butter...but it is oooh so good. So I would expect green beans or a green salad as well and this frozen "salad" to be a dessert.

[ellies mom]

Oyster stew and clam chowder were big for us growing up. I could skip the oyster stew now but still love the clam chowder. Another serious treat once we moved to the west coast were the occasions that my dad would have some relative ship us live Maine lobster.

Hmmm, I may have to make a clam chowder this year.


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[klwa]

We must have chicken and dumplings. And I love it. :) I'm the maker of the dumplings since Granny passed away 12 years ago.

[Kindra178]

No meat on Christmas Eve - we do the traditional "7 fishes", which is an Italian tradition. It's funny, my dad has perfect grammar/English (he studied communications and acting for awhile), but for some reason everyone says 7 Fishes, as opposed to 7 Fish.

[m448]

Pastelitos - small fried Dominican empanadas. Since I moved far away from family that means if I want to eat them I have to make the filling, dough and each pastelito from scratch. Usually you live in a town with a Dominican lady who would make them to order for anyone in town.

[zoestargrove]

since we moved here 8 years ago, we've bought the cider donuts made at the farm up the street on the last day they are open and frozen them. On Christmas morning, I bake them up all warm and crispy. They're delicious.

My family growing up used to do Chinese take out on NYE, but that was the closest thing to having a traditional food.

[lizzywednesday]

In my mom's family, it's not Christmas without Grandma's nut cup cookies.

They're great, if you like walnuts, which I don't. I really should learn how to make them, though, because then I could switch up the nuts to something I do like!

She and my mom usually do the Christmas baking tomorrow-ish - growing up, my mom attended Catholic school and she'd either have Dec. 8th off or an early dismissal, as it's a Holy Day of Obligation (Feast of the Immaculate Conception) so it became the perfect time to bake for Christmas.

In my dad's family, it used to be all about stollen. Nana always comments on how lovely a stollen my dad could bake ... !

I don't particularly care for the candied fruit that's in stollen, so it's not my favorite thing.

When I was little, it was not Christmas without baking with my mom. I now have her recipes for lebkuchen, pfeffernusse and springele, in addition to a few more I've collected over the years. I haven't done all of them since 2008, though, but it's hard to do the labor-intensive ones with a busy toddler around the house!! (The first 3 all involve a 2-day process; the pfeffernusse & springele proof overnight while the lebkuchen needs to rest overnight so you can actually work with it.)

Maybe next year ...

Oh, and I don't care for pfeffernusse or lebkuchen, but I love to bake them because they smell like Christmas.

[Puddy73]

I like to include some of the traditional Swedish dishes from my Dad's side: korv (sausage), gravlax, glogg, saffron buns and lots of cookies. Pickled herring salad and lutefisk - no way! I'm pretty sure lutefisk was originally eaten on a triple dog dare.

I love my Mom's stollen but I haven't been able to duplicate it yet, even with her recipe.

For New Year's Day we always eat pork, greens and black eyed peas. Yummy!

[Twoboos]

No meat on Christmas Eve - we do the traditional "7 fishes", which is an Italian tradition. It's funny, my dad has perfect grammar/English (he studied communications and acting for awhile), but for some reason everyone says 7 Fishes, as opposed to 7 Fish.

We do this too! Of course it's 7 Fishes. ;)

One of the fish is always fried Smelts. Most of us don't like them. My aunt and uncle will have a few, and we end up dumping the rest!! I wouldn't mind cutting back to 6 Fishes... :ROTFLMAO:

[MamaMolly]

My father's mother made burbon balls. Really strong ones! I like to keep that one going, as does everyone in DH's office. ;)

My mom wants pickled peaches, but I can't even look at them. Grosser than gross, grey-ish green-ish and still with the skin on, so fuzzy. She's going to have to get over it this year!!

Being from the Deep, Deep South we also do ham, collard greens and black eyed peas on New Years.

DH's family is an odd mix. His dad's side does German things so red cabbage is a holiday staple. I make a pretty mean pffernussen cookie because FIL loves them. His mom is a Newfie and she has to have pickled herring for New Years. Lucky her, she gets to eat the whole jar (and does! With a big smile! :)) Nothing like pickled herring and black eyes peas. :ROTFLMAO:

[boolady]

As a kid, we always had soup and grilled cheese sandwiches on Christmas Eve, because my dad would be working, my mom would be scurrying to get last minute things done, and we were inevitably headed out to church or my grandparents. Once my sisters and I were grown, and on the years we don't have Christmas Day with my parents due to the rotating in-law schedule, we switched to DH and I hosting and having a homemade appetizer buffet...artichoke dip, chicken meatballs, brie with walnuts and caramel, antipasto platter, etc.

I have tried to reinitiate my grandmother's New Year's Day pork loin with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes dinner. On Christmas with my family, it's either turkey and all of the traditional sides, or a spiral ham, scalloped potatoes with leeks, roasted veggies, pineapple stuffing, homemade cole slaw, etc. No matter the main course, dessert is my mom's homemade cookies and my dad's sour cream pound cake.

My mom makes several different kinds of homemade cookies every year and I always make a bunch of loaves of pumpkin chocolate chip bread.

[Meatball Mommie]

No chicken on New Year's Day; you will scratch for money all year. Eat pork and be fat all year. (It's my grandmother's thing..)

Sausage and Saukerkraut

:yeahthat:
I've never found anyone else who had heard of this! My grandmother was Polish and my grandfather was Romanian - so I'm not sure where the tradition came from, but we always ate pork on New Year's Day (and sauerkraut too) and DEFINITELY no chicken :)

No real Christmas food though...

Now I make a breakfast casserole ahead of time and bake it Xmas morning. That way no one is actively cooking while the opening of the presents is happening!

[boolady]

:yeahthat:
I've never found anyone else who had heard of this! My grandmother was Polish and my grandfather was Romanian - so I'm not sure where the tradition came from, but we always ate pork on New Year's Day (and sauerkraut too) and DEFINITELY no chicken :)

I don't know about the no chicken, but my grandmother, who was German by way of Pennsylvania Dutch, was the person who always made pork and sauerkraut in my family. I know in that area, it's a tradition. I have heard the pork is good luck on NYD from multiple sources.

[brittone2]

:yeahthat:
I've never found anyone else who had heard of this! My grandmother was Polish and my grandfather was Romanian - so I'm not sure where the tradition came from, but we always ate pork on New Year's Day (and sauerkraut too) and DEFINITELY no chicken :)

No real Christmas food though...

Now I make a breakfast casserole ahead of time and bake it Xmas morning. That way no one is actively cooking while the opening of the presents is happening!
Pork and sauerkraut on New Years day is huge where I grew up.

My mom always did a big pork roast...I prefer pork tenderloin. I usually serve it with sauerkraut, cooked apples, and mashed cauli (we don't do potatoes), along with something green.

[KLD313]

We do this too! Of course it's 7 Fishes. ;)

One of the fish is always fried Smelts. Most of us don't like them. My aunt and uncle will have a few, and we end up dumping the rest!! I wouldn't mind cutting back to 6 Fishes... :ROTFLMAO:

Here too! My grandmother always made fried smelts. Yuck, I never touched them. We also always do spaghetti with anchovy sauce and I still make that, love it.

[kedss]

we make my great grandmother's recipe for "Chicken Soup with Dumpling" and fresh bread on Christmas Eve. The recipe is in a letter she wrote to my mom in the 1960s, and the letter hangs in the kitchen all year, we take it down at Christmas even though we all know the recipe by heart. I made it for the first time when I was 9 when my mom was on call. ;) We usually have Cherry Pie afterwards.

[buddyleebaby]

Christmas Eve we always come home from Mass and have my mom's lasagna.

I love it.

[larig]

my mom always hosts xmas (since my dad's parents passed).
beef tenderloin roast
homemade noodles (this is for all special occasions)
homemade rolls (sweet and dinner).

ETA: and we always make corned beef on new years. It's my mom's family thing, she said her mom (born in 1900) always did it.

[jgenie]

since we moved here 8 years ago, we've bought the cider donuts made at the farm up the street on the last day they are open and frozen them. On Christmas morning, I bake them up all warm and crispy. They're delicious.

My family growing up used to do Chinese take out on NYE, but that was the closest thing to having a traditional food.

What a great idea - filing it away for next year!!

[AnnieW625]

Christmas Eve is at my uncle's house and he is a serious cook. We usually have a pork roast, beef roast, or I think we've had Cornish game hens. The sides usually a creamy soup, potatoes, and a green salad are excellent too. The dessert is amazing too. The only downside is that we often don't eat the main course until 9:00 pm. I am hoping that we start early this year because CE is on a Saturday.

On Christmas Day we go to DH's uncle's house and we have enchiladas, chile verde, tamales, red rice, chorizo beans, green salad, and lots of cookies and pies or cakes for dessert. This year I am going to make some apple pies. The next day we all return for leftovers. DH loves the menudo.

[mommyp]

Tourtiere (French-Canadian meat pie) on Christmas Eve. We all love it!

I always bake cinnamon buns for Christmas morning.

[clc053103]

Am jealous of all those who have meat on Christmas Eve, DH's family refuses. We do the 7 fishes, but part of that is shrimp 3 different ways!

[gatorsmom]

One that comes to mind is pickled herring. My grandmother always had a dish of pickled herring amongst her buffet dishes. As our family ages I have noticed it gets eaten less and less. There used to be a time when I had to fight for it but not so much for the past 10 years. There seems to be plenty left for by the time I get through the buffet line. Which is fine by me because I adore the stuff.

[MamaInMarch]

Here too! My grandmother always made fried smelts. Yuck, I never touched them. We also always do spaghetti with anchovy sauce and I still make that, love it.

I absolutely love them... When I was kid everyone saved the tails for me because it was my favorite part.:bag