Since it’s the Christmas and Holiday season, and many of us will either be cooking for family, friends and loved ones, or will be guests at others’ holiday tables, I thought it would be fun to see what traditional Christmas/Holiday foods people eat around the world. Let’s see what others from around the world will be eating for Christmas dinner, shall we? 🙂
- In many of the English speaking countries of the world, such as the United States and the UK, many people will be eating ham, roasts or turkey with potatoes and stuffing and vegetables. We had an early Christmas dinner that featured both a smoked prime roast and smoked turkey An Early Christmas Dinner Celebration. I will be hosting Christmas dinner again, on Christmas Day, this time featuring a ham as the center piece.
2. Seafood is a big Christmas tradition in Italy, with the “Feast of the Seven Fishes” that is the highlight. The Feast of the Seven Fishes is a traditional Italian-American Christmas Eve dinner featuring multiple courses of fish and seafood, stemming from Southern Italian Catholic fasting traditions that abstained from meat before Christmas Day. Celebrated as La Vigilia, it’s a festive, meatless meal with various seafood dishes, often including clams, shrimp, cod (baccalĂ ), mussels, and calamari, with the number “seven” symbolic but flexible, with some families serving more. This is usually the Christmas Eve feast for many Italians and Italian Americans. I have had the pleasure of enjoying the celebrations of The Feast of the Seven Fishes before. Not only did we enjoy seven types of fish, but there was so many other delicious Italian foods all around the table that truly made it a feast in every sense of the word.
3. Tamales and posole (hominy stew) are served around Mexican tables. Tamales and pozole are cherished Mexican Christmas traditions, bringing families together for festive feasts, especially on Christmas Eve (Noche Buena). Making them is a communal labor of love, involving assembly lines to spread masa (dough) and fillings (like pork/chicken) onto corn husks for steaming, while pozole, a hearty hominy stew (red, green, or white), offers comforting warmth, often served alongside with garnishes like lettuce, radish, lime, and avocado. These dishes, rooted in ancient Mesoamerican culture, symbolize tradition, family bonding, and good fortune for the New Year. I shared many Christmas Eve dinners with my best friend Andrea and her family while still in California, and everyone would be a part of the whole tamale making process. When the tamales were done, we would all enjoy the fruits of our labors, along with fun festive musica and stories, and lots of laughter and love. I would always bring the desserts too. I have many deliciously happy memories from these days. 🙂
4. The French like to feast on oysters and capon for their main Christmas meal, with a Buche de Noel for Christmas dessert. Capons, oysters, and Bûche de Noël are classic components of a lavish French Christmas (Réveillon) feast, representing the traditional savory main course (roasted capon), a decadent starter (oysters), and the iconic dessert (Yule log cake), symbolizing festive indulgence and European holiday traditions. A capon is a castrated rooster, known for its tender, flavorful meat.
5. The Scandinavian countries enjoy Ribbe (pork ribs), Pinnekjøtt (cured lamb) and Lutefisk (lye-cured cod) for their Christmas celebrations. This dates back to the old Catholic traditions of Norway and the other Scandinavian countries, when restriction of meats required fasting on various designated days and weeks. Fish and porridge were the substitution foods. During the four Advent weeks preceding Christmas, dry fish was most widely available, and lutefisk became identified with Christmas because of these circumstances.
6. The Canadian Province of Quebec is French, but they have their own Christmas and holiday traditions. They dine on a meat pie known as tourtiere. The word tourtiere is derived from the word “tourte,” or the French name for the now-extinct passenger pigeon, which was once a filling ingredient for this savory meat pie. Today it is a savory French-Canadian meat pie, traditionally from Quebec, filled with minced pork, veal, or beef, and potatoes, seasoned with spices like cinnamon, clove, and thyme, and baked in a flaky crust. It’s a festive dish, especially popular for Christmas and New Year’s Eve celebrations, and is enjoyed year-round in many parts of Canada and New England. Larry and Maureen actually enjoyed dish this while we were in Quebec earlier this year at Chateau Frontenac. Great Eats In the Great North – Part 7 – Chateau Frontenac
7. In the Philippines, the savored Christmas dish is the lechon, or a whole roasted pig. The name “lechon” is said to have come from the Spanish word “lechona” which means “suckling pig.” This indicates that the first version of this dish is what is locally called lechon de leche.
Whole pigs are spit-roasted slowly over charcoal for hours, and when done right by masters called “lechoneros,” the meat inside is rendered tender and juicy and the skin is crisp like candy and caramelized to a perfect orange brown sheen.
Unlike other roast pig dishes of other cuisines, the Philippines’ lechon is known for its skin. The perfect lechon skin is cooked evenly and remains smooth and shiny. The best ones feature skin that remains crisp for several hours!
8. In Goa, India, people enjoy Sorpotel or a pork curry for Christmas. The people of Goa have a lot of Christian roots originally coming from Portugal. Goan Sorpotel is a traditional, spicy, and tangy pork curry of Portuguese origin, considered a festive delicacy in Goa, India. It is a complex, labor-intensive dish made with pork meat and offal (liver, heart, tongue) that is simmered in a rich, vinegary sauce and traditionally served with sannas (steamed rice cakes) or Goan bread.
Wherever you are from, wherever and however you are celebrating the holidays, the most important ingredient to any meal, especially Holiday meals, is LOVE. Celebrate the holidays in your own traditions with family, friends and loved ones. Stay safe and stay well. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. ‘Til next time.
A Jeanne in the Kitchen 
Happy to see tourtiere on your list! I learned my late MILs secret recipe from helping her make them, years ago. She had an arrangement with the local butcher for her mix of meats, and would get about 30 pounds of ground meat. It took us 2 days to make them. The first day was cooking the filling, which would then be set outside in the snow to cool overnight. The next was an assembly line of making the hot water crust in batches, with new batches set outside to cool, then being rolled out, pie pans filled and baked. She could fit four pies at a time in her oven. When she gave me her recipe (my SIL was not interested!), she encouraged me to make it my own, and for a few years, we took over making the Christmas tourtiere – yes, with 30 pounds of ground meat! I adjusted the spices and seasonings a bit and my MIL actually told me that mine tasted better than hers!
I miss her.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Very cool! 30 lbs of meat? ! That’s a lot of meat!
LikeLiked by 1 person