Ballymoney Chronicle - Features - The 5 strangest Christmas dinners

Features

The 5 strangest Christmas dinners

Tuesday, 6 December 2011

As the holidays near, you might be tempted to find some Christmas recipes that are a bit different from the same old foods. Many people often look to other cultures to find inspiration, but sometimes that can be stranger than you might expect.

Christmas swan and roasted boar's head (Medieval England)

In Medieval England, feasts were designed to impress, and none were more impressive than at Christmas. For peasants, that usually meant serving goose or other wild fowl, a tradition we still recognise and practice here in the UK. For the upper classes, however, simple goose would not suffice.

The richest noblemen in England would instead serve the most expensive meat money could buy, which was often roasted swan or even roasted peacock. They cost more money than most of the population could ever imagine, but the birds weren't even the most impressive part of the Christmas feast. The pièce de résistance was the roasted boar's head: which was the head and front quarters of a domesticated boar. The fatty meat of the head would sometimes be pressed with jelly to make the delicacy known as a brawn, which would then be served at the final course of the feast.

KFC chicken dinner (Japan)

Many things in Japan may seem unusual to Westerners, but nothing seems odder than the colossal demand for KFC's Christmas dinner buckets. KFC spokesman Sumeo Yokokawa says, "Our holiday sales are five to ten times higher than in other months... In Japan, Christmas equals KFC". People start placing orders up to two months in advance, just to be sure they can enjoy fast food fried chicken on Christmas Day.

This is not nearly as odd as it may seem, however. After all, Christmas is not a traditional holiday in Japan. In fact, legend has it that KFC's dominance over Japan's Christmas dinners came about because in the 1970s, Westerners would go to KFC to get chicken for their Christmas celebrations, since it was the only place to find fowl at short notice to comprise the centrepiece of their dinners. An employee of the restaurant noticed, and the company decided to launch an ad campaign associating the brand with Western Christmas celebrations. This was at a time when Japan's economy was booming, and their fascination with the West was blossoming. With that, KFC became inextricably linked with Christmas in Japan.

Julbord (Sweden)

Julbord is Sweden's traditional Christmas Eve dinner. It consists of a smorgasbord of dried codfish, pickled pigs' feet, gravlax, pickled herring and a Christmas ham called julskinka. The dominance of salted and cured fish is due to Sweden's historical ties to fishing and the need to preserve the food to keep it from spoiling whilst it was shipped to the far reaches of the country.

In addition to the salt-heavy preserved food, the Julbord feast includes freshly baked buns, gingerbread cookies and lots of candy. If you want to try your hand at a Christmas smorgasbord without all the preserved fish, you can check out the Schwartz cooking club for some ideas.

Lamb's head (Norway)

Norway's traditional Christmas dinner seems pretty familiar, for the most part. The main dish is called Pinnekjøtt (salted lamb ribs), which are often served with mashed swede or potatoes, sausage and lingonberries. Several Norwegians go one step further and serve lamb's head along with the ribs during their Christmas feast.

The head is cleaned, salted and boiled, and once cooked it's eaten from front to back. If you'd like to try the dish, the best cuts of meat are the tongue and eye muscles, apparently.

Christmas Dinner Pot Noodle (UK)

Pot Noodle first introduced its Christmas dinner flavoured snack in 2009, designing the flavour with the purpose of sending it to RAF members stationed overseas, so they could have a taste of Christmas dinner away from home.

Since then, Pot Noodle have repeatedly released the flavour, now called Pot Noeldle, near Christmas time. It supposedly contains all the taste of turkey, stuffing and the trimmings, but it only requires the time and effort needed to boil water. Plus, for every pot sold, Pot Noodle donate 2p to a fund that pays for troops to call home during the holidays.

Those are just a few of the strange Christmas dinner customs from around the world. If you prefer to keep your Christmas dinner more traditional, you can find lots of inspiring recipes from Schwartz.