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See also: Christmas Recipes; Christmas Trivia
CHRISTMAS
The celebration of Christmas was banned in Boston from 1659 to 1681. Anyone showing Christmas spirit was fined 5 shillings! This was due to the pilgrims belief that it was a decadent celebration.
Christmas was declared a federal holiday in the United States on June 26, 1870.
Stargazy pie. This is a fish pie of Cornish origin. It is made with the fishes' heads sticking out of the crust all round the rim, and presumably takes its name from their appearance of gazing skywards. In her Observer Guide to British Cookery (1984) Jane Grigson notes that 'it is a specialty of Mousehole where they make it on 23 December every year, Tom Bawcock's Eve, in memory of the fisherman who saved the town from a hungry Christmas one stormy winter.'
Hiding an almond inside rice pudding is a Christmas custom in Sweden. Whoever gets it has good luck for the new year.
In Oaxaca, Mexico, Christmas Eve is also the Night of the Radishes, when large radishes are cut into animal shapes.
According to German tradition, partaking in a roast of pork dinner on Christmas Eve will prevent evil and promote prosperity in the New Year.
Tortellini is a specialty of the Bolognese Christmas dinner (filled with turkey, ham, and sausage forcemeat).
The Dutch eat chicken stuffed with sauerkraut at Christmas to mark the end the year and celebrate the beginning of the New Year. The reason for chicken? Because the animal scratches the ground, it symbolizes scratching the earth over the old year.
www.Steinfeldssauerkraut.com
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