Curry for Christmas?
‘Tis the season for food traditions: the crumbly mince pies, the warming mulled wine and the fistfuls of chocolate and sweets you’ll eat almost unconsciously between now and New Year. The turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce and pudding can all be reassuringly ticked off along with Santa’s list... or so it seems. We may all essentially be eating a glorified roast dinner, but delve a little deeper and you’ll find that every household has evolved their own fascinating set of festive food foibles.
My uncle serves his family steak for breakfast every Christmas. It may sound overly indulgent, and who has the stomach for sirloin in the morning anyway? But what could be better to kick-start your metabolism for the main event than a huge portion of protein? A colleague’s husband, whose family are a complicated set-up of step-kids and step-parents, solves the problem of veggies, picky eaters and more importantly whose turn it is to cook by ordering a take-away curry the night before and reheating it for Christmas dinner. No stress, no mess. They go for a nice long walk and then come back home to day-old chicken dopiaza and saag aloo.
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Happy (stress-free) Christmas!
Some family food traditions are so engrained, they just continue without question. Take the flatmate whose friends were perplexed when she served a perfectly halved turkey. Realising this wasn’t the norm, she rang her mother who in turn had to check with her grandmother. The grandmother explained that she once had a really small oven which couldn’t accommodate a whole bird. And so three generations had been cooking their Christmas turkey in two ever since.
There’s the nurse who prepares a whole live lobster after finishing her shift on a neonatal ward on the 25th; the dad who spectacularly takes a risk on the big feast by scouring the supermarket aisles until closing time on Christmas Eve to nab a turkey bargain; the family who must have macaroni cheese on their list of trimmings; and the kids who took over the kitchen one year by making their own pizza toppings.
So what are your unique festive food traditions? Are you forgoing turkey this year for something completely different? We’d love to know...
Nora Ryan works on the Ö÷²¥´óÐã Food website.
Comment number 1.
At 21st Dec 2010, Rachel Ö÷²¥´óÐã Food wrote:You haven't had a roast dinner until you've had one with macaroni cheese! Especially doused in gravy.
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Comment number 2.
At 21st Dec 2010, Maedhbh wrote:We always have the same dinner, Turkey, Ham, Stuffing, Roast Potatoes, Mash, Brussel Sprouts etc. Love the idea of Curry on the 25th.
Thanks!
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Comment number 3.
At 22nd Dec 2010, Ohiogirl wrote:We always have a breakfast casserole of eggs, sausage, cheese and bread, which is assembled Christmas Eve and popped into the oven just before the presents are unwrapped on Christmas morning.
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Comment number 4.
At 22nd Dec 2010, Heatherbelles wrote:Christmas day breakfast is normally Boiled eggs and toast, before present opening.
Dinner - sometimes its roast turkey, chicken or beef, more often it's roast pork. All the trimmings, and we always have Broccolli and Csuliflower cheese with it (my brother doesn't like cauliflower, so mum often does him a just broccolli version). And the last couple of years I've cooked a ham on Christmas eve to accompany it (its on my list of jobs to do when I get to the parentals!).
That said, we had a break from tradition last year - full cooked breakfasted (Bacon, sausages, eggs, beans,toast) because my brother had to go work in the afternoon and Dad had to drive him home. By the time Dad'd be back it was too late to have eaten a full roast dinner, so we ended up cooking off a load of potato wedges, curly fries, chicken snacky type things, and just having a 'nibbly' dinner instead.
We had the full cooked roast dinner the following day though...
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Comment number 5.
At 26th Dec 2010, AZRebecca wrote:Our family tradition has always been Mexican food on Christmas. Whenever I see or smell enchiladas, tamales and tacos I think of the holidays.
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Comment number 6.
At 11th Jan 2011, KasperAshes wrote:I have Jewish friends who eat curry every christmas day, I must say it seems rather appealing after some of the disastrous Turkey's we've had in our hours!
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