That's the question our girl from California gets most frequently when she talks to family or friends back home. Norway is a long country and what you're served for Christmas dinner on our big day, Christmas Eve, depends on where you live. Some have codfish, either cooked or prepared as lutefisk. Some have mutton, pork, venison, moose, or reindeer steaks, and in these modern times some choose the turkey. Many add different types of sausages to serve with the main course. Contrary to popular belief the sheep's head (smalahove) dinners ought to be eaten before Christmas, not on Christmas Eve. We're a fairly traditional family, so we stick with what the generations before us had. Salted and dried mutton that has to be well watered before cooking, pork with crispy skin (a test of the cook's skill), a special type of spiced pork sausage, red and white sauerkraut, rutabaga (swede) mash, and boiled potatoes. Preferably the potatoes called almond potatoes since they're considered a delicacy, but any potato will do. For afters we serve rice cream with red sauce and one almond hidden in a big bowl. Whoever finds the almond wins a marzipan pig. After that ordeal most of us are in food comatose for a while. For Christmas Day dinner we use halibut, boiled potatoes, cucumber salad, and sour cream dressing. Cloudberry cream and a spiral waffle cookie, made as thin as possible, for dessert. I have a photo of the Christmas Eve dinner. I was too busy serving myself and eating during the rest of the courses. Sorry. If anybody would like to share their Christmas food traditions, please do so!
We have baked ham for Christmas dinner, along with corn pudding, green beans almondine, homemade crescent rolls (not those whack on the counter ones in a paper can), cranberry chutney which is traditional for only the past two years, and pecan pie for dessert. We both enjoy, which is good since we eat leftovers for a while!
We had baked chicken with gravy, fried dressing fritters, and cream corn ! We don`t typically do desert but we had double peanut butter cookies made earlier !
We don't eat meat. We had Quorn roast with(brussels sprout) tops, carrots, peas, roasted potatoes and parsnips, and onion gravy on Christmas day, with layered ice cream/chocolate for dessert.... all fairly traditional for the UK, although lots of families would still have managed plum pudding for dessert with cream - and tradition used to be to hide a silver threepenny piece in the pudding for the lucky recipient to find.
We don't have the same Christmas dinner every year. We tend to want to experiment, but of late, the food restrictions of our guests have determined the menu. This year we had scallops & risotto with asparagus. A yule log or cherry pie ( or both!) for dessert. Oh, and a salad of shaved Brussels sprouts, kale, fennel, & green apple.
We had German beefsteak, creamed potatoes with crème fraîche and chives and beetroot. For pud it was blueberry cheesecake. Like Cayu, it is different every year, we veer off from tradition on this.
Thanks, you lot! It's interesting to see the varieties of food people choose. And now I feel hopelessly boring and ultra-traditional. It's general consensus in this house that Christmas Dinner is the same every year and that's that. We don't eat this type of meal other times of the year. The leftovers are used for different dishes at a later date. The lamp over our dining table is a 100+-years-old chandelier inherited from my great-grandfather. I've had this very dinner underneath that lamp together with my great-grandfather several times when I was a child, and I think it's nice to feel the ties to my ancestors through food.
"I think it's nice to feel the ties to my ancestors through food." It would be nice, but since both of us come from a long line of very poor cooks, what we would feel is gastrointestinal distress!
Hahaha! Oh, dear me, @marlingardener , that comment made my day! Both our maternal grandmothers were great cooks. Our parents, not so much, but they did what their parents had done, and it turned out fine. I'm a hopeless case in the kitchen. The last time I tried to bake bread my husband ordered 200 of them because he thought we might use a new brick wall in the garden. He still lives. But my husband is a very good cook, and he likes to so I very generously let him.
I have a cheeky remark ready Droopy, but I won’t go there. But why would you cook when you have a man that cooks like a three- star Michelin chef.
We always have roast turkey with sage and onion stuffing.pigs in blankets, that's a pork sausage with a rasher of bacon wrapped around it and roasted. Roast potatoes, roast parsnips, peas, sprouts, cabbage and gravy. Pudding is Christmas pudding and cranberry sauce with whipped cream. Traditionally it would be brandy butter or a brandy sauce but that's too strong for me. It used to be called plum pudding but nothing to do with plums, it would be the dried fruit. For tea used to have turkey sandwiches and later some double chocolate gateaux but having sandwiches was getting too much so we just have the gateaux with cranberry sauce and whipped cream. Not forgetting the sparkling wine. When I'm doing the dinner I have 2 babyshams, it's only 6% volume but because I'm not used to it, it goes straight to my head.
I'm picturing your dinner in my mind, and it seems delicious. Plum pudding is a bit too sweet for my taste, so thankful that's not a traditional dessert here.
Thanks Droopy, the Christmas pudding isn't that sweet, not a lot of added sugar and with all the sherry that I put in afterwards it's just right. Not everyone has the Christmas pudding or a turkey. Still got the Christmas cake to start in the new year.
Welcome to the forum, I see that you signed on today. Please explain what "X"D" is--I don't understand. It would also be helpful to know what country you are in, and what region of that country. Since this is a gardening forum there are so many regions, climates, and soil types that giving advice from one area to another may or may not be relevant. I'm in central Texas and refrain from giving garden advice to someone in Alaska!
