Bizarre Holiday Food Traditions

[camlan]

Orange and lemon slices. Imagine a jelly sweet. Now make it much less chewy, more solid. Make it look like a slice of orange or lemon. Now cover in sugar.

It's the sort of thing we used to eat in the seventies when there wasn't anything else. I buy them for my husband. They have to sit there, it's tradition. Someone might eat one, but that's their own silly fault.

Here in New England you can find those, usually in 4 or 5 flavors. My grandmother always brought some when she came to visit. Haven't had any in years. Must go find some now . . . .

[camlan]

I was born and raised in Belgium and moved here when I was 12.  Almost all the traditional Thanksgiving food is something I had never eaten before. I don't ever recall eating turkey, ham, or pumpkin pie.  We had mashed potatoes but we never put gravy on them.  I never had stuffing before but who can resist!! 

The most bizarre to me is sweet potatoes with marshmallows, green bean casserole - my mom insisted on everything being made from scratch and her green beans were sauteed in butter with onions.  Most of all, though, I do not understand the Jell-O mold.  I can almost understand the dessert Jell-O molds, but some are made with vegetables. 

Our food might be bizarre too though.  Our Christmas spread includes freshly steamed prawns, lobster, and crabs with homemade mayonnaise as the dip; homemade smoked salmon (with vodka) on toasted bread with parsley and onions, and champagne.  For Easter we have rabbit 

Re: the Jello mold. I was born and (mostly) raised in the US and I still don't, and most likely never will, understand why anyone thought adding vegetables to a sweet fruit jelly was a good idea. Fruit, I can understand. Shredded carrots and cabbage, no. Just no.

[blue2000]

Orange and lemon slices. Imagine a jelly sweet. Now make it much less chewy, more solid. Make it look like a slice of orange or lemon. Now cover in sugar.

It's the sort of thing we used to eat in the seventies when there wasn't anything else. I buy them for my husband. They have to sit there, it's tradition. Someone might eat one, but that's their own silly fault.

^ I actually like those...

So do I. I can't eat them anymore though, because of allergies. 

[blue2000]

*My mom's personal "favorite" was vegetable Jell-O, a vegetable brother flavored jello that my grand added carrots, olives and other veggies to before molding. 

I don't like jello, but I think I would have enjoyed that as a child.

[wx4caster]

In my family's culture, it is traditional to eat fish on Christmas Eve -- specifically carp. The problem was that no one in my family has ever been that keen on fish, and particularly not carp. (And where I grew up, in Canada, I don't think it is even possible to buy -- carp except maybe koi for your pond.) So one year we decided to have some fish that we all do like: smoked salmon. Served with fresh bagels and cream cheese. So now the Christmas Eve tradition is bagels, lox and cream cheese.

DH grew up in a fishing village.  His family's tradition (and now ours) is lobster on Christmas Eve.

[wendelenn]

^ I actually like those...

Seconded. . .

[Kariachi]

My Solstice Scone. I make it every Christmas for breakfast, going so far as to be the first one up so that it'll be ready before we're done with gifts.

It's the singular that hints to the bizarre, my ex refused to even call it a scone.

One pound white cheddar cheese and one pound applewood smoked bacon, mixed with enough dough for a recipe calling for four strips of bacon and 1/4 cup cheddar cheese, plop into round cake pan, bake while it fries in it's own grease, slice, serves four to six.

Not warthog sweat bizarre, but certainly something different.

[Cami]

Interesting assumption. I think a lot of people actually prefer the taste or texture of the canned jelly.

I didn't say anything about the taste or texture, it's the presentation I find unusual.

ETA: When looking for a picture as an example, I learned that presentation of the canned sauce is apparently the source of lots of (hilarious) debate:
http://www.fark.com/comments/6758556/Canned-Cranberry-sauce-It-looks-like-a-log-of-happiness.

I guess it's actually a "thing." Who knew!

I saw a program on Thanksgiving foods and they interviewed a spokeswoman from Ocean Spray. She explained that at one point, they removed the ridges from the cans (because they are unnecessary) and there was massive complaints from customers. So the ridges came back.

[camlan]

My Solstice Scone. I make it every Christmas for breakfast, going so far as to be the first one up so that it'll be ready before we're done with gifts.

It's the singular that hints to the bizarre, my ex refused to even call it a scone.

One pound white cheddar cheese and one pound applewood smoked bacon, mixed with enough dough for a recipe calling for four strips of bacon and 1/4 cup cheddar cheese, plop into round cake pan, bake while it fries in it's own grease, slice, serves four to six.

Not warthog sweat bizarre, but certainly something different.

Um, that would be shredded cheddar cheese? And do you cook the bacon first? Because this would send my family into raptures on Christmas morning.

[Luci45]

My Solstice Scone. I make it every Christmas for breakfast, going so far as to be the first one up so that it'll be ready before we're done with gifts.

It's the singular that hints to the bizarre, my ex refused to even call it a scone.

One pound white cheddar cheese and one pound applewood smoked bacon, mixed with enough dough for a recipe calling for four strips of bacon and 1/4 cup cheddar cheese, plop into round cake pan, bake while it fries in it's own grease, slice, serves four to six.

Not warthog sweat bizarre, but certainly something different.

Wait! This sounds perfect! I get to serve breakfast for 7 - 12 on the 26th. I'm online searching for recipes. There seem to be lots of good ones.

Thanks for punching my creative must-have-different-food streak.

[Thipu1]

^ I actually like those...

Seconded. . .

I second these too.  the most exotic flavor is grapefruit.  Absolutely delicious.

[Ambrosia Hino]

SMIL makes homemade flan for just about every holiday get-together. Not complaining though, because I love flan (hmmm, maybe knowing how much I like it is why she makes it? Hadn't thought of that...)

Maybe its not that weird, but holidays since FIL got married to her were the first time I've gotten real homemade flan, much less on a semi-regular basis Flan and spanish rice just look a bit odd on the Thanksgiving table

[bopper]

The post in the "hill to die on" thread about the SIL serving frozen food for Thanksgiving inspired this thread.

What bizarre food tradition have you encountered that still has you perplexed? For me, it's my in-laws preference for how they serve the canned cranberry sauce- they extricate it from the can in one piece so the can imprint is intact, and they serve it like that - a perfect cylinder with a can imprint, sitting on a china serving dish. Everyone slices off pieces of it like it's a loaf of bread.

I asked LordL, "why do they almost seem to celebrate how artificial it is?" Our conclusion is that it's a holdover from the era when "home made" meant "too poor to afford store bought" and "store bought = fancy."

Every time we eat somewhere and there is canned cranberry sauce, and you can see even just a little bit of the can imprint on part of it, we look at each other and say "Fancy!"

This made me laugh, but yum! Cylindrical cranberry sauce!   That is how I serve it too...except we slice it all up and perhaps gently fan it down on the plate.

[lady_disdain]

I think using condensed soup as a base for a casserole or sauce is strange. The texture is off, the taste is too concentrated and it is much too salty - it is meant to be diluted, after all. I guess that it comes from living in a country where there is a lot less processed food available and a lot more cooking from fresh ingredients. I can understand why some people would feel it is "bizarre". Just as I understand that some people would feel that some of our habits are bizarre (fried manioc flour with egg anyone?)

[RobinJ]

My mother takes cherry tomatoes and stuffs them with crabmeat.  I believe that she may mix mayo in with the crabmeat?  Not sure.  I don't do raw tomatoes so I have never tried these.  But they are a Must Have at Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, birthdays, etc....