Bizarre Holiday Food Traditions

[O'Dell]

I gusee for me the definition of "bizarre" is different.  Casseroles with cream soup/white sauce/tomato base - matters of taste.  One or the other does not make it "bizarre".  Now if you told me the base was the sweat of a young warthog - bizarre.  Cranberry jelly in log, slices or sqished up - style choices.  I don't quite see the "bizarre" in it.  Maybe if you made people eat it by sipping it through a straw?

Force feeding somebody a prune comes the closest IMO, mostly because I imagine an internal monolouge "You will be regular in the coming year."

See in this context I'm reading it as "unusual" or "what tradition you do not get". I personally am amused by the cranberry sauce in a can. In a way it is rather beautiful...the glistening rich color...but really people are looking at the decorative qualities of the inside of a tin can. That to me is pretty bizarre once you break it down. Nothing wrong with that...but yes bizarre. And when I lived in California with many latino friends, they'd ask me what my midwest family ate and they thought some of my traditional family meals were bizarre and borderline repulsive (not that they said that but it's the impression I got). When I first heard about my friend's family that did the whole Tamale Xmas Eve thing, I thought it was sorta' bizarre....I would have paid good money to attend and learn how to make tamales and be a part of it. It sounded like a lot of fun and absolutely fascinating. Even other family's in the area thought it was strange that they had stuck with such an old-fashioned tradition.

And the prune thing cracks me up, but then I'm fascinated in all the superstitions that people have. I don't believe in them, but I'll partake of just about any if it suits me. There are even some superstitions I go along with for continuity of family traditions sake. Can't think of any to do with food though. And for sure a prune would be good luck! How else are you gonna' poo with all the rich foods that people eat at the holidays?

[Dorrie78]

My mom found a turkey-shaped cookie cutter years ago and now takes slices of the gelled, canned cranberry sauce and cuts them into turkeys. Each dinner guest gets a cranberry turkey on a small plate. One year, as a joke, she told her son-in-law (my sis' husband) that his Thanksgiving task was to cut disks of carrots into the shape of turkey feet. Two for each cranberry turkey. Despite the laughter and being told she wasn't serious, he carefully cut two tiny turkey feet for each cranberry turkey out of the carrot slices. New family tradition born.

[LadyL]

For me personally, I find it to be an odd juxtaposition that people often spend hours slaving over a home cooked turkey, and then serve sides that are made with canned, processed foods. As a PP mentioned it does seem to be a holdover from the 1950s marketing targeted towards house wives. People became used to those tastes and are now nostalgic about them, and pass that nostalgia down. I guess since as I've gotten older, my palate for very salty and processed foods has gone way down, I don't fully relate to that view. For one, I blow up like a blimp from water retention if I have too much salt and carbs at the same time.  I do love certain processed foods in certain contexts - White Castle anyone? - but a meal with sides primarily consisting of them? No thanks .

[RubyCat]

My mother actually loved canned veggies.  She was a really picky eater and I think I only saw her eat canned peas, canned green beans, canned corn, fresh cooked spinach, carrots, and maybe squash.  And she boiled them all to near mush.  I used to love the canned cranberry sauce and thought it was extra special if I was able to get the end piece with the imprint of the can on it.  I really don't care for it anymore and rarely eat it.  I do enjoy fresh cranberry/orange sauce but nobody else in the family does...sigh..

My mother used to make stuffing the way her mother made it:  boiled up some potatoes and mash them, soak some bread in water then squeeze the water out by hand, mix it all together with chopped onion, Bell's Seasoning (a seasoning mix that is mostly sage), and an egg.  It was stuffed inside the bird.  A lot of people thought it was a strange recipe but as a child, I loved it. 

I've tried to make it myself but it never comes out right.  My own kids prefer my own bread stuffing, but I still miss Ma's stuffing.

[Roe]

Got to have tamales on Christmas morning.

I'm kinda worried about this year as we now live in an area where homemade tamales are almost unheard of and buying frozen tamales...no way!  I think my family would disown me. 

I'm going to have to bite the bullet and actually attempt to make some this year, if I can manage to find the ingredients.  (heard Wegmans has corn husks and maza so I'm excited) 

[Valentines Mommy]

If you can find a mexican backery, ask them if they will sell you some masa.  Then tamale assembly should get easier.  Amazon also has a good selection of ethnic groceries, including the corn husks.

[BabyMama]

OzDiva, you should send me your address so I can send you any church cookbook from my state. About 80% of the recipes will ask for some sort of condensed soup. The other 20% will consist of Jell-o recipes, Ritz crackers, Cool Whip, or something completely bizarre and off the wall, like beaver meat. 

[Bethalize]

^ I actually like those...

Seconded. . .

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

Really? Are they the ones made with sugar, glucose syrup and pectin? Chuck in a bit of citric acid for flavour and some colour and bam! Festive sweeties. We don't have any other flavour available here.

[Kimblee]

We had the relish tray too. Sweet gerkins, sour gerkins, black olives, green olives and slices of bread and butter pickles.

But i never could figure out what it was for. My grandmother would slap me in the face if I ate the little things off it and tell me it "wasn't for snacking" but I swear that's what the adults did too. (and my male cousins, who were allowed to 'snack")

I miss the relish tray because my mom always made it and it was so pretty, but even when i was grown I looked, i didn't touch.

Are you saying that your grandmother expected the relish tray to remain uneaten? 

Something like that. I think it was more an excuse to smack the **** out of me. (and occasionally my female cousins, but I was the youngest so I wasn't smart enough to avoid her.)

She seemed to think the relish tray was for some purpose beyond just snagging a few salty yummies and eating them. But male cousins and adults could do whatever they wanted with it. Our family is a complicated toxic mess. I'm glad i got out of that nastiness years ago.

Now the only weirdness at holidays is my stepmom who makes dates stuffed with peanut butter and rolled in suger... YUM!

[Zilla]

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

Yep.  While I am not a fan of it but I do like the bright red of it sitting on a plate quivering in it's excitement at being sliced.  And the ribbed sides aid in letting those who slice it know how thick or if they wanted a double.


(at least that is how I see it in my head at this boring dinners growing up lol)

[weeblewobble]

Got to have tamales on Christmas morning.

We have enchiladas for Easter.  My sister's birthday usually falls close to Easter, and enchiladas are her favorite food.

[The Wild One, Forever]

Got to have tamales on Christmas morning.

I'm kinda worried about this year as we now live in an area where homemade tamales are almost unheard of and buying frozen tamales...no way!  I think my family would disown me. 

I'm going to have to bite the bullet and actually attempt to make some this year, if I can manage to find the ingredients.  (heard Wegmans has corn husks and maza so I'm excited)

I became addicted to tamales at Christmas time when we lived in California.  I miss them so, and am bound and determined to find some this year.  Since Katrina, our area's Mexican population has increased quite a bit, so I'm thinking with a little research, I'll be able to find them.  I do the whole turkey and ham dinner with all the sides at Christmas, but tamales make a nice addition! 

Let us know how yours turn out!  I don't have time to attempt them this year, and never have tried to make them, but I recently saw corn husks at the Winn-Dixie. 

[Sweettooth]

Everyone who has married into my family finds it bizarre that we have chicken instead of turkey for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. I guess my grandmother never cared for turkey, and so we don't have it--just roasted chicken (not carved at the table) and country ham. The funny part is, my brother (who is 36) didn't know until just last year that we've been eating chicken all these years. He just assumed it was turkey . . .

This year we went wild and had TWO kinds of cranberries, the canned sliced kind and the whole berry kind, but I think that's just because someone picked up the wrong can at the store.

[jimithing]

For me personally, I find it to be an odd juxtaposition that people often spend hours slaving over a home cooked turkey, and then serve sides that are made with canned, processed foods. As a PP mentioned it does seem to be a holdover from the 1950s marketing targeted towards house wives. People became used to those tastes and are now nostalgic about them, and pass that nostalgia down. I guess since as I've gotten older, my palate for very salty and processed foods has gone way down, I don't fully relate to that view. For one, I blow up like a blimp from water retention if I have too much salt and carbs at the same time.  I do love certain processed foods in certain contexts - White Castle anyone? - but a meal with sides primarily consisting of them? No thanks .

I find this akin to saying that people just "don't know better." You are forgetting one important factor. There are people who genuinely like those overprocessed, canned foods.

We had a thread on here a couple of years ago, that actually got quite heated, about canned frosting vs. homemade. I will pick frosting made with shortening any day, compared to home made frosting. People think it's disgusting, but I can't get enough. There is a local grocery store that makes cupcakes piled with that artificial frosting, and I get one weekly, because I like it.

[Kaesha]

My mom found a turkey-shaped cookie cutter years ago and now takes slices of the gelled, canned cranberry sauce and cuts them into turkeys. Each dinner guest gets a cranberry turkey on a small plate. One year, as a joke, she told her son-in-law (my sis' husband) that his Thanksgiving task was to cut disks of carrots into the shape of turkey feet. Two for each cranberry turkey. Despite the laughter and being told she wasn't serious, he carefully cut two tiny turkey feet for each cranberry turkey out of the carrot slices. New family tradition born.

My brain is filled with awesome!