Ok obviously I’m not talking about eating those particular geese, because I am not a hunter and also because I don’t know that I’d trust anything taken out of the Chicago winter. But Niles said he’d never tried goose before, so we’re cooking a goose this year for Christmas! I’m nervous – I’ve only tried to roast a whole bird two or three times before, and never anything this big. I got the smallest one I could find at Whole Foods (which is still a pretty sizeable bird), and I’m using a Julia Child recipe from The Way to Cook, which is awesome, because I’ve been meaning to tackle something out of that book for a while.
Fingers crossed I don’t ruin this bird, thereby ruining Christmas itself!
My family never had any ironclad traditions for Christmas dinners, although it was usually a bird or a ham or something. Once we made pizzas! But I was just reading about the Feast of the Seven Fishes, which sounds amazingly delicious, and now I’m curious about other traditions. What are you guys eating?
When I was growing up my family always did a version of the Feast of the Seven Fishes at my aunt’s house for Christmas Eve – I don’t think we had a set number of dishes, or if so I wasn’t aware of it, but it was definitely a seafood-focused meal: there was always linguine with crab sauce, and scungilli salad, and stuffed baked quahogs, and I don’t even remember what else.
For Christmas day, my mom always used to make Italian-wedding soup, which she doesn’t do anymore because we have a smaller Christmas meal these days then when I was a kid. The Christmas holdover from my childhood that *has* most definitely persisted is my mom making English trifle for dessert – and we always have leftover trifle for breakfast the following day. Also, my mom makes boozy coffee eggnog (with coffee liqueur + whiskey), which is the best thing ever. My mom also makes some sort of roast beef with horseradish sauce for Christmas – usually tenderloin, though this year she’s making a standing rib roast – I don’t remember if this was a part of my childhood Christmases or not – possibly yes, and I just wasn’t into it as a kid.
My family always hosted a Christmas Eve buffet for the whole clan that included ham, sweet and sour meatballs and baked beans each in their own crock pots, green bean casserole, my stepdad’s pesto, some kind of green salad, rolls, pumpkin pie, various cookies …. The cookies and pesto are the main thing distinguishing the food from Thanksgiving, heh. At my in-laws’, their big traditional Christmastime meal is on Christmas Day, so on Christmas Eve since I’ve been coming, we’ve mixed up the Christmas Eve meal. One year I made enchiladas, one year we got takeout, and this year is a bizarro combination of clam chowder (good old Massachusetts), a “southwestern” salad, and homemade pizza. And cocktails and wine. It will be awesome.
Noooooooooo! Not the geese! XD I seriously laughed out loud. Great comic.
Over here in the Netherlands it differs per family.
In mine rabbit is a bit of a tradition. Stewed with beer and spices. Together with red cabbage, potatoes of some sort. This year my mum also had rollade, which is a piece of meat (pork or beef) rolled, tied and flavored with all kinds of spices and then baked in the oven.
Hope your goose tasted nice, I’ve never had it!
We had a goose this year! How did it turn out?
@kristin: it turned out DELICIOUS. So good. But such a pain in the ass to cook, I don’t think I want to try making it again anytime soon.
@Marina: Rabbit stewed with beer and spices sounds delicious!! Not many Americans eat rabbit, but there are a few markets in Chicago where you can get it if you know where to look. I’d love to try it; do you have a recipe?