{"id":3680,"date":"2017-12-13T14:17:56","date_gmt":"2017-12-13T14:17:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eatrightpa.org\/?p=3680"},"modified":"2021-10-30T03:39:03","modified_gmt":"2021-10-30T03:39:03","slug":"holiday-food-traditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.eatrightpa.org\/blog\/2017\/12\/13\/holiday-food-traditions\/","title":{"rendered":"Holiday Food Traditions"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Laura Ali, MS, RDN, LDN<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I love the hustle and bustle of the holiday season.\u00a0 It starts with decorating the house, baking cookies, and shopping to find special gifts for my favorite people.\u00a0 The holidays are all about being together and food has always been one of the best parts of our celebrations.\u00a0 Every year I look forward to making our favorite family dishes.\u00a0 They always bring back memories of past holidays, special times and family.<\/p>\n

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While I love the traditions I grew up with, it\u2019s fun to learn about traditions in other families and meld them together in our celebrations.\u00a0 Since I\u2019ve gotten married, the dishes I make have expanded.\u00a0 I grew up in an Irish \u2013 German family and my husband is 100% Italian. Now, in addition to my family\u2019s traditional beef roast and potatoes and mincemeat pie, spinach balls and stuffed artichokes<\/a> (my Mother-in-laws specialty) are also found on our table.<\/p>\n

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When I asked some of my colleagues for their favorite holiday food traditions I heard so many stories of visiting grandma and the special meals she made.\u00a0 They\u2019ve kept the traditions and meals alive \u2013 either with the same recipe or an adaptation to make it a bit healthier. \u00a0\u00a0Here is a little about some of the foods we enjoy during the holiday season and what makes them special.<\/p>\n

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Hanukkah<\/strong> \u2013 The celebration of the miracle of the oil that burned for eight days and nights, which kept the menorah lit.\u00a0 Many of the foods prepared during the eight days of Hanukkah pay homage to that miracle by using oil.\u00a0 Potato pancakes (latkes), fried jelly filled donuts, and called sufganiyot, along with blintz, rugelach, and challah bread are foods traditionally enjoyed during Hanukkah.<\/p>\n

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Christmas Eve<\/strong> – For many Southern Italian families, the Feast of the Seven Fishes is a traditional way to celebrate Christmas Eve.\u00a0 Traditional fish include baccala (salted cod), anchovies, fried smelts and calamari.\u00a0 Other Italian Christmas Eve dishes include pasta, eggplant and sausage and peppers.\u00a0 Kelly Jones, MS, RD<\/strong> shares her favorite memories of going to her grandmother\u2019s house and her Christmas Eve lasagna<\/a> and her remake of the dish to make it dairy free.\u00a0 In Germany Christmas Eve is a time to feast, often on pork, beans and macaroni salad.\u00a0 Raquel Redmond, RD<\/strong> shares her grandmother\u2019s macaroni salad<\/a> that she now makes for many of her family holidays.<\/p>\n

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Christmas <\/strong>dinner in my family always included a beef roast, popovers and plum pudding and mincemeat pie<\/a> for dessert (along with dozens of varieties of cookies).\u00a0 For my Polish friends, they celebrate Christmas dinner (Wigilia) with the traditional beet soup \u2013 Borscht, poppy seed cake and always an odd number of dishes for good luck. Other common dishes found on many Christmas dinner tables include goose (from France and Germany), Turkey (Brazil and France), B\u00fbche de Noel (France), Nutrolls (Hungry) Oysters and Roasted Chestnuts from France and Italy.<\/p>\n

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New Year\u2019s\u00a0Day \u2013 <\/strong>There are more superstitions around the food eaten on New Year\u2019s Day than any other day of the year.\u00a0 In Spain they celebrate the New Year by eating 12 grapes, one to bring luck for each of the coming months.\u00a0 Pork and sauerkraut are served for many Pennsylvania families\u2019 New Year\u2019s dinners.\u00a0 Both are Eastern European and German traditions and have been thought to bring\u00a0wealth and good luck.\u00a0\u00a0Deanna Segrave-Daly<\/strong>\u00a0shares her grandmother\u2019s recipe for\u00a0Kapusta<\/a>, a braised sauerkraut and her family\u2019s New Year\u2019s traditions.<\/p>\n

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My best memory of a special New Year\u2019s Day was the first New Year\u2019s dinner with my future in-laws.\u00a0 In addition to the traditional pork and sauerkraut was pasta and meatballs, sausage, parmesan chicken, wedding soup, and those delicious stuffed artichokes<\/a>.\u00a0 There is no superstition associated with any of those, just a typical Italian holiday dinner but I will always remember those artichokes \u2013 and now that my mother \u2013 in \u2013 law has passed away, will always make sure they are on our New Year\u2019s table in her memory.\u00a0 I have to believe she will be smiling on us!<\/p>\n

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So many of our food traditions are formed over generations and all have special meaning, some are surrounded by myth and superstition but all are associated with wonderful memories.\u00a0 What are some of your favorite foods for the holidays?\u00a0 Please share below so we can learn about other traditions!<\/p>\n

\"LauraLaura Ali<\/strong>, MS, RDN, LDN<\/strong> is Manager of Nutrition and Regulatory Affairs for the StarKist Company in Pittsburgh, PA.\u00a0 You can follow her on twitter @LauraAli_RD<\/b><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Laura Ali, MS, RDN, LDN \u00a0 I love the hustle and bustle of the holiday season.\u00a0 It starts with decorating the house, baking cookies, and shopping to find special gifts for my favorite people.\u00a0 The holidays are all about being together and food has always been one of the best parts of our celebrations.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":3682,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,93,1],"tags":[92,70,94,95],"class_list":["post-3680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-2","category-december","category-uncategorized","tag-christmas","tag-dietitian","tag-holiday","tag-holiday-recipes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.eatrightpa.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.eatrightpa.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.eatrightpa.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.eatrightpa.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.eatrightpa.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3680"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.eatrightpa.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10644,"href":"http:\/\/www.eatrightpa.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3680\/revisions\/10644"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.eatrightpa.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.eatrightpa.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.eatrightpa.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.eatrightpa.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}