Traditional Christmas Meals From Different Countries?

Question

I'm looking for traditional Christmas meals from Places that celebrate the Christmas holiday. It can be a web site, book, or your common knowledge. My family and I are getting bored with our usual Christmas dinner menu and would like to try out something new. To help, I already have some countries that celebrate Christmas:

Australia

Austria

Canada

Denmark

Eastern Europe (Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania)

Finland

France

Germany

Mexico

Netherlands

New Zealand

United Kingdom and Ireland

United States - Even though we live in the US we do not know the traditional meals served during this time

We're Looking for recipes for traditional Christmas dishes and any other unique Christmas customs.

Vegetarian Christmas dishes would be great too.

Answer 1

Australia has a few customs either the traditional English Xmas lunch of a hot roast meal and Plum Pudding but increasingly it is salads ands seafood or BBQ

When living in Japan the few expats went to an Indian restaurant for lunch and then back to work

Answer 2

Germany (north):

Christmas eve: Carpen blue

Christmas: Goose stuffed with apples and sultanas and apple red cabbagde.

Greetings from Hamburg, Germany

Heinz

ps: that are the traditional Christmas dishes for about 1000 years. Sorry, there are no vegeterian dishes with so long tradition.

Answer 3

My entire family is Dutch, my mother was even born there, so we have some great traditional Christmas food.  Most of it is baked goods though :) we Dutch love our sweets.

Traditional Dutch Christmas foods include boiled chestnuts eaten with butter and salt, marzipan, and Kerstkrans, which are Dutch Christmas cookies.  Tea and speculaas (hard cookies). Letterbanket, (banket is NOT easy to make) letter shaped cakes, are also distributed on Christmas Eve.

For a main course at Christmas dinner, roast goose may be served, or turkey, or perhaps venison or rabbit. On New Years Eve, a donut-like pastry called an Oliebollen (like a doughnut only better) is served.

I have not yet inherited the family recipes for most of these but there are plenty of Dutch recipe sites out there.  Good luck.

Answer 4

Canada - Turkey with a bread stuffing & cranberry sauce

                 Mashed Potatoes, turnip, yams, carrots & peas

                 Dessert - Apple pie or pumpkin pie

Germany - Rouladen (Stuffed beef rolls), red cabbage and

                   spetzle or dumplings

                   Dessert - Black Forest Cake

You can find the German recipes on www.allrecipes.com

Answer 5

When I became a working mom, I no longer had the time for traditional Christmas dinners and sometimes I had to work on Christmas.  Our family had a meeting and we decided to do easy, unconventioal meals consisting of foods we normally didn't have and to concentrate on being together rather than slaving away in the kitchen.  that first Christmas, my kids, all teenagers at the time, chose meat and cheese platter, veggie platter and treats platter.  they then made thier own poor boy sandwiches  as they were hungry and we had no clean up except paper plates and spent the whole day playing board games and just being together.  We all loved it so much that now, Christmas gets weirder(meal wise) all the time.  One year it was pizza and rootbeer floats, one year a big pot of Jambalya and a big pot of chili.  Another year it was Indian Tacos and ice cream.Of course now, 2 of my girls are married and have kids of thier own and our little group has grown but we still love thinking up strange and unconventional meals for holiday dinners.  Everyone has to help so no-one is stuck in the kitchen  and we all have a blast.

Answer 6

In Jamaica its curry goat rice n peas

Answer 7

You don't list Italy, but the Feast of the Seven Fishes is a tradition for Christmas Eve. Where I live in the US, there are a lot of people of Italian descent. Many people have the Feast on Christmas Eve, and then have a large buffet for Christmas day that includes turkey, ham and meat based pasta like lasagna or stuffed shells. My family usually has a roasted prime rib dinner for Christmas here in the US- it's an expensive meal we usually have only once a year to signify the importance of the day.

Answer 8

As I recall, in my parent's Russian household ... Christmas was not celebrated at all the way we do it here now-a-days.

For one thing, all during the period of Advent it was a Lenten time, so meat and dairy products were not allowed  The kids got to eat dairy products, but not the grownups.  We ate a lot of Kasha's made from different types of whole grains  Lots of picked cabbage and cucumbers, tomatoes  Lots of dumplings stuffed with potatoes or kasha's (like polish pierogi). ans stuffed with fruit also.  We had a hearty vegetable based soup daily.  Many times beans were added, rarely pasta's, often beats and cabbage.

For Christmas Eve, a very strict fasting time, we ate very lightly.  Usually a kasha of rice or whole grains with a dried fruit compote and some antipasto of picked vegetables and herring.

On Christmas day, we had whatever my mom wantd to cook.  She liked to make duck or goose for the meal.  She also liked to bake wonderful rolls that were stuffed with fruits or cheese.  Wonderful.

Answer 9

Here in NZ, the Maori, traditionally have a hangi for Christmas.

It is food that is placed in a hangi pit (big hole dug), on special stones which are heated.

The food is wrapped and placed in wire baskets, covered with wet sacks and then covered over with soil.

The hangi is then left to cook/steam for many hours.

When the process is finished, the hangi is uncovered, the food is brought up and served to the whanau (family).

Typical food in a hangi would be:

Pork

Chicken

Pumpkin

Kumara (sweet potato)

Potatoes

Stuffing

Steamed pudding.

Maori bread (rewana)

Sometimes food is placed into foil takeaway trays, closed and then put in the pit.

The taste of hangi is unique, smoky and delicious.

The men are in charge of the hangi.

Most women would be envious, that the men cook the Christmas dinner. lol.

Other Kiwi's have the traditional Christmas food, sometimes substituting turkey for baked ham or spring lamb.

A typical Kiwi Christmas dessert, would be pavlova, decorated with of course Kiwi fruit, fruit salad, Christmas pudding and brandy sauce.

Informal Christmas food would be barbeque.