In English:
Winter is a time of holidays around the world: Hanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, New Years, to name a few. Different cultures celebrate in different ways, but most often when people gather to celebrate, they gather to eat.
For much of the Christian world, the pinnacle of the holiday season is Christmas dinner. This is a time when families gather together and share a great feast on Christmas Eve, usually after Midnight Mass. In France this meal is called "le reveillon." Depending on the regional culinary traditions, the menu may consist of goose, buckwheat cakes with sour cream, turkey with chestnuts or for the Parisians, oysters and Foie Gras. A cake called La Buche de Noel, which is shaped like a log, is also eaten as part of le reveillon. Champagne, the bubbly, festive drink produced in the Champagne region, will be enjoyed at both the Christmas and New Year celebrations.
Fat Stomach is the name given to Christmas Eve in Germany because it is said that those who do not eat well on this evening will be haunted by demons during the night. So Germans enjoy many dishes such as suckling pig, macaroni salad, white sausage and other regional specialties. Marzipan, spice bars and a moist, heavy bread filled with fruit are served for dessert.
In Italy, many families enjoy eel or other types of fish, pork sausage covered with lentils or turkey stuffed with chestnuts for their Christmas dinner. Sweets such as panettone (cake filled with candied fruit), torrone (nougat) and panforte (a rich gingerbread) are also part of the Christmas celebration. As a rule, Christmas sweets must be made with nuts and almonds. Italian folklore states that eating nuts aids the fertility of the earth and helps increase flocks and family.
For Russians, too, Christmas is celebrated with a festive meal. It is usually meatless and includes a special porridge called kutya. This unique dish is made of wheatberries or other grains that symbolize hope and long life, as well as honey and poppy seeds that ensure happiness, success, and untroubled rest. A New Year’s Eve celebration will include a champagne toast and revelry with family and friends.
In the Spanish-speaking world, the Christmas season is celebrated with food as well. In Spain, the Christmas meal is never eaten before midnight. A family feast features Pavo Trufado de Navidad (Christmas turkey with truffles; truffles are a rare mushroom found underground). For dessert, the Spanish enjoy turron, a candy of roasted almonds in caramel sauce. On Christmas Eve in Mexico, many people attend church and then return home for a big feast of turkey, chicken, tamales, fruit tea and plenty of sweets. As with most Mexican celebrations, a pi?ata is part of the Christmas party. Children try to break the pi?ata to gather the candies, fruit and toys inside.
In Brazil, however, the dinner is served before Midnight Mass so, as the legend goes, the Holy Family can have some while everyone is gone. A popular Christmas meal for Brazilians consists of turkey, fish and champagne. Because of Brazil’s unique multi-cultural population and European influence it is quite common to find an Italian panettone or a German stollen as part of the meal as well as many other delicacies from around the world.
For Eastern countries such as Japan and China, the holiday season centers around the New Year. The New Years celebration, Shogatsu, is the most important and popular holiday in Japan, lasting for three days. Traditionally the Japanese enjoy a meal of toshikoshi soba (buckwheat noodles) that symbolize long life. They also eat zoni, a soup containing mochi (pounded rice), vegetables and fish. Zoni refers to the foods offered to the God of New Year that are cooked together in a pot and eaten by the entire family during the three day celebration of the New Year. Otoso, sweetened rice wine, is the traditional drink for the New Year.
In China, food is served in abundance for the New Year celebration. Many of the foods enjoyed at this time have special meaning. For example, special cakes called nian-gao are prepared which serve as a symbol of prosperity for the family. The Chinese also dine on a twelve-course meal, each course filled with symbolic meaning. One of the courses, fish, symbolizes surplus, mustard greens (a leafy vegetable) represents longevity, while the turnip is thought to bring good fortune. The most significant of the foods eaten on New Year’s Eve is the Chinese dumpling that symbolizes wealth because its shape is similar to the ancient Chinese gold and silver ingots. A coin is cooked into one of the dumplings and whoever ends up with the coin will be the most successful and luckiest person that year.