CheLondon - eatdrink Magazine

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I
was just reading through the Food
section of our local newspaper, which
featured a recipe for a honey cake
to be made for Rosh Hashanah, the
Jewish New Year celebration. e author
acknowledged that nobody really enjoys it,
but noted that the cake is part of a
very old tradition, which is apparently
reason enough to go through
the motions of making it. It seemed
to her that to not oer honey cake
would somehow be sacrilegious,
even if it went stale in the cupboard
after the considerable eort
required to bake it.
e Christmas fruitcake has also
suered a serious decline in its ability to
excite party guests, and we’ve all heard jokes
pertaining to its regifting or its potential use
as a paperweight. But fruitcake too, like the
Jewish honey cake, continues to have its place
during the holiday season, like it or lump it!
at recipe got me thinking of some of the
traditional dishes that I have come across:
some great, some horrible, that continue to
grace the tables of families across the country
on their special feast days.
I moved to California some years ago,
and the rst American anksgiving I
was invited to was at the home of a friend
who had grown up in Georgia. One of her
anksgiving Day “must-haves” was a cornbread
stung. It had the visual appeal of a
pasty porridge and a taste equally as bland,
but despite another guest bringing to the
potluck a savoury sausage stung, the table
wasn’t complete for the host without her
family “go-to” dish.
Other sides that arrived that year (and
every year to follow) were the green bean casserole
(beans smothered in cream of mushroom
soup, topped with canned fried onion
rings) and sweet potatoes with marshmallows
broiled on top. No doubt these dishes
were great hits in the ’70s before nutrition
became a serious study of interest, but people
continue to prepare them out of nostalgia,
№ 32 | November/December 2011
the lighter side
Comfort Food & Holiday Traditions
By CAROLYN MCDONELL
completely dismissing the not-so-new knowledge
that fresh ingredients are really much
healthier for you and your heart! It seems
nutritional value and good health practices
go out the window with the desire to uphold
the memories of old and the comforts of
foods from our youth. Many people
are more than willing to have
their sodium and caloric intake
skyrocket for the day, rather than
leave their much-loved recipes a
memory of the past — despite having
to shop for many ingredients in
the canned food aisle.
Perhaps much of this has to do
with the fact that many people are
not lucky enough to be sharing their special
days with their families and old friends, and
somehow creating the same meal their relatives
are making (and have made for decades)
brings back many fond memories and makes
them feel just a bit closer to home.
My family was invited to a neighbour’s
house for Christmas a few years back and
the menu consisted of prime rib of beef,
mushroom risotto and salad. Blasphemy!
I had grown up with turkey, ham, mashed
potatoes and all the xings, and this, albeit
delicious sounding menu, just seemed
wrong! I brought a sweet potato casserole, a
cranberry cake my mother always makes for
Christmas Eve, and my father’s favourite: a
mincemeat pie. No doubt they didn’t lend
sophistication to the prepared culinary feast,
but at least I felt a little closer to my roots!
e only thing that was missing was the
dessert platter, containing a delicious assortment
of squares and the Christmas cake my
mother labours over every year. It’s never
something that I enthusiastically reach for,
but there is much comfort in the fact that it’s
always there! Something like family ...
CAROLYN MCDONELL is a UWO grad now living in Los
Angeles, where she has established several new traditions while
introducing some Canadian standards to California.