Sentimental Food Faves

[ithildin]

What foods do you associate with memories of the holidays?

Me, it's mostly sweets, other than the aforementioned sausage rolls.

Matrimonial Cake
Nanaimo Bars
Mince Tarts
Butter Tarts
Plum Pudding
Sees Chocolates
Fruit Cake

Comments

[beeej.livejournal.com]

Fruit cake. Specifically, Claxton Fruit Cake (http://www.claxtonfruitcake.com/index.php). I love that stuff.

Spiced pecans.
Orange cinnamon roles.
Peanut Blossom cookies.
Peppermint bark.
Starbuck's peppermint mocha latte.
Mincemeat pie.
Roast duck/goose.
Stuffing!

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

For me, it's my mum's homemade fruit cake. So much brandy, it's probably flammable [g]

Stuffing!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Gravy!!!

I must know more about the orange cinnamon thingies.

Nin started making spiced pecans a few years back. They are nummy.

[jinxed-wood.livejournal.com]

I always remember the Christmas Turkey my Dad made when I was eleven, because my Mum was laid up in hospital after giving birth to my youngest sister (born on Christmas Eve, poor thing!)He made such a huge production of something my poor Mum had done for the previous decade without a fanfare in sight. We had a kitchen range when I was young, and it was fueled with turf. The turkey was covered in rasher bacon (to get the turkey skin just right) and took hours to roast!

It was delicious, though ;-P

Also - my Nana's plum pudding, sliced up and fried with butter, and then served with brandy cream.

My Mum's Christmas Cake.

Stuffing and roast potatoes.

Cadbury's Roses.

And all those bloody brussel sprouts! (As an adult, I mentioned to my Mum that I hated them, and she admitted she hated them herself - but it's traditional, ya know!)

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, Cadbury Roses! Too late to order any now, I suppose. We always got the tin of assorted Cadbury chocolates too.

The turkey sounds yummy!

[sharpes-hussy.livejournal.com]

My maternal grandmother who came from Switzerland made Zopf (pronounced zufa), a Christmas bread....
http://www.about.ch/culture/food/zopf.html
From the dough she created beautiful braided masterpieces as depicted in the link above.
I not only recall how incredibly fragrant it was as it baked, but that she baked it all in a wood stove exclusively. How she managed to get it baked to perfection, she made a huge batch to give to family and friends, is still a mystery to me.
I miss her so very much, but her bread remains fixated in my mind as an integral part of Christmas.
There were other lovely things she made for Christmas, but her Zopf remains fixated in my mind.

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

Sounds nummy!

[sharpes-hussy.livejournal.com]

It was.
I just sent the link to my sister last night with hopes that perhaps her husband, who is a bread maker, will try his hand at it given that site has the recipe AND technique for braiding loaves.
She also made little twists that looked like doves.......even pinched an area and added raisins for eyes.......
I loved her bread but most of all miss HER very much.

[spiffikins]

I love you because you're the first person outside of my family who knows what butter tarts are :D

Also, is your matrimonial cake made with dates? Because we always called it date square, but I'm pretty sure the recipe's name was Matrimonial cake.

I need to dig out the Mennonite Cookbook and make me some yummies.

My list is:

Butter Tarts
Fruit cake from my grandmother
Date Square
Lemon Square

and then randomly...Old Dutch potato chips - we rarely had chips, but at Christmas time, mom would buy boxes of them!

Mandarin oranges wrapped in green paper in the "crate" cardboard box - eating them and eating them and hoping to get them all before they got moldy :D

And the Danish butter cookies in the round blue tin.

Turtles!

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

Really? I guess I've never asked [g] Yep, it's dates, though I'm not fond of dates, so mum makes me an apricot version too. I loved Old Dutch chips. And the Mandarin oranges? Woot! We always got some in our stocking too, and I always figured Santa didn't know we already had them in the house.

[tequilajen.livejournal.com]

For me it's a combination of savory and sweet.

Turkey with gravy and stuffing
Mashed potatoes (when I could get them away from Diane)
Gram's cranberry relish
Candied sweet potatoes
Creamed onions (when I could get them away from Mom, Diane, and Gramps)
Ribbon candy
Pumpkin pie
Apple pie

It's been a long time since we had a true family gathering. They were stressful, but I sort of miss them...

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

I'm hungry now and we just ate [g]

[anya2112.livejournal.com]

Standing Rib Roast
Green Bean Cassorole
Homemade Mac-N-Cheese
Lemon Meringue Pie
Deviled Eggs
Homemade decorated Sugar cookies
candied carrots (made only for Aunt Dee-Dee,as she was the only one who would eat them...but they were made every year, none the less!)

Shut Up.....

\hugs/

[morgynleri]

Snickerdoodle cookies
Sugar cookies, pressed out with an old, flat-bottomed glass
Pecan pie - though I've never actually eaten any of it
Chocolate chip cookie bars
goose
latkes
hot chocolate made from scratch with honey and cinnamon to sweeten it
a drink that greatly resembles egg nog, warm and spiced and heavy with cream
mulled cider

... now I'm wanting to go splurge at the grocery store and make up holiday foods.

[bookaddict43.livejournal.com]

Roast lamb and veges!! Mint sauce with the lamb. (I hate it, but everyone else loves it)

Pavlova!

[juniperphoenix]

For me it's Chex Mix (I am now the official family Chex Mix maker) and this wonderful lemon poppyseed bread that one of my aunts used to send.

Also, my mom used to make mini holiday wreaths out of cornflakes coated in a marshmallow and green food coloring mixture and accented with red hots.

[fkastrider.livejournal.com]

Our family tradition involves making Julecage (http://fkastriderfood.blogspot.com/2009/11/bestemors-julekage-original-version.html), which I have recently gotten my wife to make using our bread machine.

I need to update my food blog to include the recipes of all our favorites for Thanksgiving/Christmas.

[idontlikegravy.livejournal.com]

We're big on tradition in our house, we try to buy the same things year after year for Christmas and not have them any other time of year so they stay special.

For me it's more nibbly things and sweets that I associate with the holidays. There are these savoury snacks called Cheese Footballs, which are tiny soccer balls made from a kind of waferish biscuit, filled with this soft cheese filling, and you can only really find them around Christmas. There are actually websites where you can go to find out who has them in stock!!!

Toffifee
Pickled eggs
Old Jamaica Chocolate (rum & raisin bar made by Cadbury)
Brandy snaps
Vol au Vents
Chestnuts (because since I turned veggie I have a chestnut pie instead of turkey)
laver bread (for a full Welsh breakfast)