Christmas Facts, Figures and Trivia on Food

Facts about Christmas Food

• A traditional Christmas dinner in early England was the head of a pig prepared with mustard.
• An old wives' tale says that bread baked on Christmas Eve will never go mouldy.
• At Christmas, Ukrainians prepare a traditional twelve-course meal. A family's youngest child watches through the window for the evening star to appear, a signal that the feast can begin.
• At lavish Christmas feasts in the Middle Ages, swans and peacocks were sometimes served "endored." This meant the flesh was painted with saffron dissolved in melted butter. In addition to their painted flesh, endored birds were served wrapped in their own skin and feathers, which had been removed and set aside prior to roasting.
• Christmas pudding - This was originally a type of porridge called frumenty, but more and more ingredients got added through the years.
• Christmas pudding should be stirred from east to west.
• Christmas pudding was first made as a kind of soup with raisins and wine in it.
• If travelling in France during the Christmas season, it is interesting to note that different dishes and dining traditions reign in popularity in different parts of the country. In south France, for instance, a Christmas loaf (pain calendeau) is cut crosswise and is eaten only after the first part has been given to a poor person. In Brittany, buckwheat cakes and sour cream is the most popular main dish. In Alsace, a roasted goose is the preferred entrée. In Burgundy, turkey and chestnuts are favored. In the Paris region, oysters are the favorite holiday dish, followed by a cake shaped like a Yule log.
• In Armenia, the traditional Christmas Eve meal consists of fried fish, lettuce, and spinach. The meal is traditionally eaten after the Christmas Eve service, in commemoration of the supper eaten by Mary on the evening before Christ's birth.
• In Britain, eating mince pies at Christmas dates back to the 16th century. It is still believed that to eat a mince pie on each of the Twelve Days of Christmas will bring 12 happy months in the year to follow.
• In Victorian England, turkeys were popular for Christmas dinners. Some of the birds were raised in Norfolk, and taken to market in London. To get them to London, the turkeys were supplied with boots made of sacking or leather. The turkeys were walked to market. The boots protected their feet from the frozen mud of the road. Boots were not used for geese: instead, their feet were protected with a covering of tar.
• It is estimated that approximately 400,000 people become sick each year from eating tainted Christmas leftovers.
• It was the custom to eat goose at Christmas until Henry VIII decided to tuck into a turkey. 93 per cent of the population in the UK will eat turkey on Christmas Day; this means 11million turkeys being cooked!
• Mince pies - You should eat mince pies in silence, and make a wish with each one.
• The Christmas turkey first appeared on English tables in the 16th century, but didn't immediately replace the traditional fare of goose, beef or boar's head in the rich households.
• The Christmas turkey was imported to France by the Jesuits and it is still known in some French dialects as a 'Jesuite'.

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