LEVANTE LIFESTYLE

CHRISTMAS FOOD AND DRINK - ROUND THE WORLD

By Galyna Anderson

Take a look at what other people are cooking for their Christmas and New Year parties in other countries.

Spanish traditional Christmas Eve dinner includes different types of seafood. Historically one of the most popular dishes was “angulas” (baby eels), which nowadays are often replaced by “gulas” made of fish mix and shaped as baby eels (much cheaper, but still tasty!) Prawns and salmon, cod, sea bream or shellfish are among the favourites too.

The main meal on Christmas Day usually includes roast lamb or fish and a lot of different sweets such as “turron”, “mazapan” and “polvorones” (crumbly cakes).

The New Year’s Eve tradition of eating 12 grapes at midnight was invented in 1909, when the wine industry was loaded with a surplus of the very rich grape harvest. Somebody was clever enough to come up with this brilliant sales idea, and since then a lot of people have enjoyed eating one grape at each chime of the clock, hoping it will bring health and prosperity the following year.

New Year’s Eve dinner in Belgium will include roast meat, rice and pudding. Each area of the country has its special desserts, biscuits and cakes, baked according to the special local recipes, and prettily decorated.

In Germany Christmas Eve meal is traditionally fishy – herring salad and fish cooked in many different ways. For Christmas Day the favourites are liver dumpling soup followed by roast pork or schnitzel served with red or white cabbage and sauerkraut. In some areas a goose is more typical for the main course. The traditional drinks are beer, cider and mulled wine.

In Austria, Hungary and the Czech Republic one wouldn’t see turkey, goose or duck on the New Year’s table. In these countries it is thought to be bad luck to eat poultry on that day: your happiness may fly away as a bird. A properly baked strudel (apple cake) served on this day is the particular pride of every housewife.

In Poland the New Year Eve’s meal consists of 12 dishes, all of them are vegetarian. Fish, mushroom soup, porridge with prunes, dumplings with butter, chocolate cake, etc., but no meat at all!
Japanese traditional New Year’s food - “osechi-ryori” - consists of fish, sea food, vegetables and sweets. Each dish has its special meaning and is believed to bring happiness, health, long life and success. Osechi-ryori is cooked in advance, packed in layers of lacquer boxes – “jubako” - and stored at cool temperatures.