Christmas feasts from around the world

This article was originally published in December 2016.

Christmas to me, smells like biscuits and mulled wine. I grew up in Germany where we wrap up warm and stroll through Christmas markets drinking hot wine from clay mugs and nibbling on different types of spiced biscuits.

Many of my favourite childhood memories are of sitting in the kitchen helping my mum bake. We chatted away while cutting cookies, immersed in the delicious smells that wafted from the oven.

For most of us, Christmas brings back memories of family meals and culinary traditions. For us immigrants, it’s also often a day when we miss our families who live far away.

We attempt to keep some of the traditions we grew up with alive or at least create new ones, blended in with those of our new country.

Food brings cultures together

Brazilian Fabio Lippo Boardmann, living in Wellington with his Kiwi wife Casey and their one-year-old daughter Gabriela, believes that food is a big part of how we connect. “You bring different cultures together over food,” he says.

“My family in Brazil follow traditions and serve recipes that involve cold rice and raisins, a couple of types of salads and a turkey.” But since he’s moved to New Zealand in 2005, Christmas Day is all about the Churrasco-style barbecue.

The traditional South American barbie features skewers loaded with meat, grilled over a charcoal fire.

“We use different cuts from what’s usually sold in New Zealand,” the Brazilian explains. But he’s managed to find a butcher that can sell him the meat he’s used to.

The family is not only multicultural but also comprises several faiths as his Jewish wife Casey brings Hanukkah traditions to the table. During the Jewish holiday, also known as the Festival of Lights, a variety of foods are fried or baked in oil and eaten to commemorate the miracle of a small flask of oil keeping a Menorah oil lamp alight for eight days.

“We usually have potato pancakes and doughnuts,” she says. Most years Hanukkah takes place in early December but this year it coincides with Christmas. “During the day we’ll eat our Christmas meal and at night we’ll celebrate Hanukkah.

Food is also very important to Nigerian Mazi Onyekachi Nwankwo, known as Nelson, who lives in Auckland.

“I have a blended family now as my partner is New Zealand European and we have a son who is a Niwi (Nigerian Kiwi) or oyibo igbo (white igbo). Igbo is my ethnic group in Nigeria,” he explains.

Sharing food is a way to care for each other

His parents have worked very hard throughout their lives to put food on the table.

“Sharing food with relatives and friends back home is a way of taking care of each other, and my mother is known in our village for doing this.”

The common Christmas food back home is rice, chicken, stew and various meats, including goat, which is a speciality as not everyone can afford it.

Egusi soup is also commonly eaten at Christmas. It is made from ground seeds, normally watermelon seeds, and is a favourite amongst Nigerians. Fufu, oha and okra soup are also very common foods Igbo people eat at Christmas.

“I often cook stew and soup and then freeze it so I can eat it when I feel like it. I’ll definitely have some at Christmas and will offer it to my New Zealand family, but it’s not usually to their taste,” he says.

Recreating food from his homeland isn’t easy. “Only a few people sell it here and it is very expensive. Something you can buy back home in Nigeria for $5 costs $30 here, so it makes it hard for people to keep eating their local food.

“I miss everything about my local food, especially the different kinds of soup. Ofe owerri, egusi and bitter leaf soup in particular.”

His Kiwi family usually has a barbecue and his vegetarian partner makes meat-free sausage rolls. They have salads, cheese and crackers, pavlova and brandy snaps.

But there are also aspects he loves about the traditional Kiwi Christmas. The barbecued meat with lots of tomato sauce, and the chocolate that’s on offer.

Celebrating history and tradition

Perhaps less exotic, but still a long way from the typical chilled out Kiwi barbecue , is Christmas at Mark John Warren’s house in Wellington.

“I’m a proud Englishman who is very aware of history and tradition, and Christmas dinner is a great opportunity to express and engage with both of those,” he says.

Mark, father to a one-year-old daughter with his Kiwi girlfriend Sia says that “the classic English Christmas dinner of roast turkey, spuds and all the trimmings is world famous and that’s what I try to create at Christmas time.”

Although he discovered a love for cranberry sauce and eggnog while living in the United States, he still uses his mum’s recipe for Yorkshire pudding he copied from her years ago. “Obviously I can’t divulge it – it’s top secret!”

There’s just one thing the Englishman can’t get in New Zealand. “Usually everything is readily available here, bar one very important family tradition that belies my working class upbringing – Nestle After Eight Mints.”

But luckily, this year he’s ordered some online and are now waiting for the big day in the pantry.

Despite being able to have his traditional feast on his plate there’s one thing he can’t get his head around.

“After nearly 19 years here it’s still a novelty and slightly weird that Christmas is in the summer.”

Christmas curiosities from around the world

It’s fair to say that most countries dish up their special foods on Christmas Day. And while some traditions sound truly amazing, others cater to an acquired taste.

Provence

In the French region of Provence, the traditional Christmas Eve dinner ends with a ritual of 13 desserts, representing Jesus Christ and the 12 apostles.

They’re all served at once and the guests are all expected to taste each one. The desserts include dried nuts and fruit, fresh fruit, sweets, pastries, and there’s always dark and white nougat which represent good and evil.

Greenland

On the upside (for some) the men traditionally serve the women in the household, but the downside is that the season’s favourites are mattak and kiviak. Mattak is whale skin with a strip of blubber inside, which supposedly tastes like fresh coconut, but I’ll believe that when I taste it.

Kiviak is the raw flesh of little auks (Arctic birds) preserved in the hollowed-out body of a seal served in an advanced stage of decomposition. Sounds delicious!

Japan

Christianity isn’t big in Japan and Christmas isn’t a public holiday, but that doesn’t mean that the Japanese don’t want a bit of Christmas cheer.

Ever since an immensely successful advertising campaign in the 70s, families head to KFC for a bucket of “Christmas Chicken”, the closest thing to a turkey that’s available.