A Look into Christmas Dinners Around the World.
Christmas. Everyone’s favourite holiday (and favourite meal!). However, have you ever thought about having a BBQ for Christmas or even a 12-dish meal? Whilst in the UK, our traditional Christmas dinner consists of turkey, potatoes, Christmas puddings and mince pies, that’s not the case for other countries around the world. Here are 7 different Christmas dinners from around the world.
Hungary
In Hungary, most of their Christmas dinners include Carp Soup, stuffed cabbage, fried fish, and the famous dessert ‘Beigli’. Beigli is a traditional dessert pastry that can be stuffed with either chestnuts or poppy seeds.
Iceland
In Iceland, ‘Ptarmigan’, a type of bird, is a popular Christmas dish. It can be accompanied by ham, smoked lamb, beans, peas, gravy and potatoes.
India
The Christmas season is usually celebrated with ‘Kuswar’. ‘Kuswar’ is a combination of sweets such as ‘kidiyo’ which are deep-fried dough balls coated in icing sugar, cookies and fruit cakes. This is a tradition usually celebrated within Christian and Catholic communities. However, the main dinner consists of a range of popular Indian dishes such as Biriyani ( spices, meat and rice dish), lamb, mutton curry and ‘Aloo Gobi’ (spiced potato and cauliflower)
Italy
In Italy, Christmas dinner is usually eaten on Christmas Eve and is known as the ‘Feast of Seven Fishes’ or ‘La Vigilia’ in Italian. This meal is made up of seven varieties of fish and vegetable dishes. The most common ingredients you will find are Octopus, anchovies, eel and shellfish.
Poland
Poland’s Christmas dinner consists of a completely meatless 12-dish meal called ‘Wigilia Feast’. This is eaten on Christmas Eve. The meal was traditionally symbolic of the 12 apostles but nowadays the number of dishes can vary with the amount of guests expected. The dinner starts with Red borscht and is followed by other soups, carp, herring and pierogi. For dessert, a poppy seed and a dried compote fruit beverage.
Philippines
In the Philippines, their Christmas dinner tends to be more on the sweet side. A traditional Christmas ham is sweetened with honey and a roast pig is caramelised. One of the most common dishes is a sweet Filipino spaghetti which is served with sugar-sweetened tomato sauce. You will also find other dishes such as ‘Rellenong Manok’, which a baked chicken stuffed with other meats and onions, and ‘Kare-Kare’, an ox tripe in peanut sauce.
Australia
Contrary to the cold wintery days in the UK, Australia’s Christmas consists of sunshine and hot weather. Therefore, the Australian Christmas meal consists of an outdoor barbecue. This includes salads, a range of meats, fresh fruit-topped Pavlova and lots of prawns.
After hearing about all these amazing Christmas dinners, will you switch up yours this year?