Menus, December 17, 2013

My idea of Christmas, whether old fashioned or modern, is simple: loving others.

Bob Hope

Bob Hope, for those of you who were born anytime after a relatively little while ago was a guy who got attention by traveling around the country putting on silly shows, got famous by making silly movies about traveling on various roads, and then got admired by traveling the globe putting on silly shows for soldiers far from home.  Well, admired or reviled, depending on which war was contributing his audience. Spend that many Christmases with strangers in strange places and the Holiday breaks free of it's traditional tethers.

Here is is, at a USO Christmas show circa 1972
Bob Hope is the one with the pointy, er...nose.

It has been my great good fortune too to celebrate a few tradition-bending Christmases.
Here's one of my faves:

Christmas Day at the beach, circa 1990.
That cricket set had been under the tree just hours before.
Wait. Did we have a tree that year?

It took some getting used to. While Northern Hemisphere Christmases can get kooky:

Southern Hemisphere Christmases take that crazy and add a little "Toto we are NOT in Kansas anymore" for good measure. 

We've commemorated Christmas on beaches, in deserts, in snow, and once skipped Christmas altogether, when we boarded a plane on Christmas Eve, and lost December 25th over the International Date line.

You know, the strangest thing about that flight was not the two adults and three children pretzeling together round the 10 inch tray-table tree that I'd stuffed in my carry on. 

The strange thing was that neither pilot nor flight attendant said anything about the fact that Christmas Day had just fallen into the ocean.

No one even suggested that if we looked out the window, we might see a jolly fat man driving a reindeer-powered sleigh.

of course, there may have been reasons for this.

Somewhere along those years, as we sweated through glorious outdoor Christmas concerts and swatted flies away from Christmas picnics, Christmas broke free of the traditions that had defined it. On some happy, sweltering Christmas day, I started wondering if all over the world, people celebrate Christmas in ways that are essential to them, 

and weird to everyone else. 
(Those are Danish krampas, whose Christmas
hi-jinks include kidnapping naughty children.
And to think my Liz was terrified by guy in a Santa Suit.)

Impelled by curiosity, I spent a little while wondering into what other people in other places do that makes Christmas merry and bright. And as it often does, the combination of curiosity and information made me hungry. Before you know it, I was picking the most interesting (and easiest) bits from this great article on Christmas dishes around the world and stirring them into dinner- 

Wednesday:  Crockpot ham and  Sweet and sour kale 

Pork, fish, poultry, sugar and strange unpronounceable things. These are the items most likely to appear at a worldwide Christmas dinner. We're going to start with a little ham- maybe one of those super easy teeny loafy looking ones, that'll warm up in the crock pot. Or, maybe there'll be time for this wonderfully delicious looking recipe for a bone in ham. Vegetables are notable for their absence from Wikipedia's list- the exceptions being cabbage and potatoes. Lots and lots of cabbage and potatoes. This kale takes the form of a salad (thanks Sweden for having kale as well as cabbage) with a sweet and sour dressing. It just may be a year-round keeper.

Thursday:  roast chicken with crock pot rice and peas

Unless it's a place where a fish is easier to come by than a fowl, there's a roast bird on the Christmas table. We'll be taking a lesson in laid back from Jamaica and picking up a rotisserie chicken to go with Jamaican rice and beans. If you have time, and want to try your hand at roasting chicken, I can totally recommend this America's Test Kitchen method. I'm pretty sure that the rice and beans will work well in the slow cooker- at least I hope so, because that's where they're going to cook. 

Friday:  Danish pancakes with ham and mushrooms

Ok. So. The real Danish Christmas pancakes? Wow! Look at this recipe- it's enough to make me wish for a special Danish doughnut pan! The version I've linked to here is for a flat version, almost what I think of as a crepe, and instead of filling them with raspberry jam (yum!) we'll be turning them into dinner with leftover ham or chicken and maybe some cheese. I'll saute some mushrooms for some B-vitamin goodness, only because the idea of eating them marinated, as they do in Poland, doesn't sound very good with pancakes.

Saturday: take away chicken and potato salad

You're going to think I am making this up, but I assure you I am not. In Japan, the centerpiece of Christmas dinner is Kentucky Fried Chicken. See? I told you that you'd think I was making it up. Kentucky Fried is so wildly popular in Japan that families place their Christmas orders months in advance! People wait in line for two hours to take it home for Christmas!  We've just welcomed a new Raising Canes into town, so we might indulge in some takeaway fried chicken and marvel over what a funny world it is. In Argentina and lots of other places, Russian potato salad is on the Christmas roster- it's potatoes, carrots, peas and eggs all bound in a mayo dressing. I've linked to one of the simplest versions I could find, but if you want to go even simpler and still get a kick out of eating internationally, stir some cooked carrots and peas into store-bought potato salad. Just don't tell a Russian. Or an Argentinian.

Sunday: sausages and red cabbage

Sausages in Germany, Finland, Norway- in Sweden, Tradition dictates the presence of small sausages, big sausages and smoked sausages! Sausage is one of at least thirteen dishes Swedish tradition spreads for the feast- a dish for Jesus and each of the twelve disciples. The amount and diversity of the Traditional Swedish feast is the source of our word Smorgasbord- which is Swedish for "Christmas table". (This sets my nerdy little heart aflutter and my curious little tummy arumblin.) The cabbage, common to so many Northern countries, looks so pretty, and as a bonus cooks in the crock pot. We'll have filled up on fried chicken the night before, so I'll be looking for a low fat, low sodium sausage, maybe Aidell's, or something from a market that makes it's own sausages,  and I'll be careful about the sugar in the cabbage. After all, having fun with traditions shouldn't cost one's health. Right?  

Isn't it odd, that while I was moping in a tropical paradise, wondering what sort of fun Christmas could possibly be without mugs of Swiss Miss hot cocoa with crunchy marshmallows, some displaced Serbian was wondering how Christmas could be Christmas without fish soup. And somewhere a lonely Puerto Rican was missing his mother's octopus salad, a homesick Norwegian was longing for lye-soaked fish and a possibly rum-soaked expatriate Englishman 

was sighing for a 6 weeks-aged rum-soaked raisin cake.

I hope they found themselves finding a Christmas behind the Christmas too.

And that's what I hope for you, in these last crazy days. 

I hope that no matter what changes,

or what stays the same-

what traditions are honored or jettisoned.

No matter where you are,

or where you're far from-

whom you're with,

or whom you're without.

I hope you hold 

and feel yourself held by

peace, and joy, and love-

the only Christmas traditions

that are truly universal.