CULINARY CAROLS – A CRASH COURSE

Few things create more holiday spirit than nostalgic carols on the speakers, beautiful food in the oven, and the 40-foot inflatable Santa from Costco. Lawn decorations aside, we’ve put together the ultimate guide to the food serenaded in our favourite Christmas carols. From chestnuts roasting on an open fire to crisp apple strudel, here’s a most delicious guide to holiday eats from the Christmas songbook.

WTF IS WASSAIL?

Admittedly, we associated this term with boats as children…perhaps the ones of “I Saw Three Ships” fame. Turns out, it’s a warm drink originating in pre-Christian England and served like punch in small wooden bowls. Translating to “to your health” from the old Norse salutationves heill, wassail-the-drink evolved from wassailing-the-verb, which was the pagan practise of visiting the apple orchards to sing to the trees and toast a good harvest. This evolved to a door-to-door toasting of this delicious beverage, and the drink took on the name of the practise, now largely replaced by caroling. Which brings us full circle back to the “Wassail Song” or “Here we go a-Wassailing.’

Fun Fact: Wassail is made with beer or cider and mulled wine is made with…well, you know. Otherwise, the two drinks are very similar.

PUMPKIN PIE

Sure, pumpkins have their moment  in October. But we’d like to make a case for rescuing your Halloween jack-o-lanterns from a terrible fate as a front-porch science experiment and making this classic dessert lauded in such holiday tunes as “Rockin’ around the Christmas Tree”, “Over the River’, “Sleigh Ride”, “Through the Woods’ and ‘(No Place Like) Home for the Holidays.’ Try this Doupe Family Pumpkin Pie from the Holiday 2022 issue of Savour Calgary.

Wassail

Wassail

Savour Calgary Christmas Playlist

pumpkin pie

Pumpkin Pie

egg nog

“Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer, she’d been drinking too much eggnog, and we begged her not to go.”

“When they pass around the coffee and pumpkin pie.” – Sleigh Ride

CHESTNUTS ROASTING ON AN OPEN FIRE

December 14 is Roasted Chestnut Day (there really is a day for everything). Let’s talk turkey. Actually, let’s talk Turkey. Europeans were introduced to chestnuts by ancient people of Sardis located in what is now Turkey. Turns out, Turkey is a pretty nutty place as it also supplies about 80 per cent of the world’s hazelnuts. For the record, Nutella doesn’t hold a candle to the Turks’ findik ezmesi, which you can find at various Turkish markets including Turca, Anatolia and Istanbul Grand Bazaar & Cafe. Back to chestnuts. Here’s how to roast them.

FIND some shiny, smooth chestnuts (NOT horse chestnuts — they’re poisonous) in late November at any of the Italian stores in Calgary.

MAKE two slits (in the shape of an x) with a serrated knife on the round side (not the top or bottom) of the chestnut.

SOAK in a bowl of water for 10-12 hours. If you’re short on time, a few minutes in boiling water is how Roman street vendors do it.

LAY chestnuts slit-side-up in a cast-iron skillet and place them on the hot coals of your fire for 15 minutes, tossing regularly to avoid burning.

REMOVE from the pan and place the hot chestnuts in a damp kitchen towel and form a little bag around them, twist the top and let them sit, sizzling, for 15 minutes.

While the nuts are still warm, PEEL the skin off by pulling back on the “x” you made. Discard any that look suspect.

SERVE them to your soot-covered family.

You can also roast them on a cookie sheet at 350 F for 30-35 minutes if you’re not so handy with a flue.

FIGGY PUDDING

If the singers of the “12 Days of Christmas” have a generous suitor, the singers of “We Wish You A Merry Christmas” are a bunch of demanding jerks. If one of our guests insisted on figgy pudding without saying please and refused to leave until it was delivered, we’d slip them a roasted horse chestnut and wish them good night.

As you probably know, the word “pudding” in Great Britain isn’t the same as it is in North America. There, it’s synonymous with dessert. Any dessert. In figgy pudding’s case, it’s any of many medieval Christmas dishes, usually sweet or savoury cakes containing honey, fruits and nuts. So, fruitcake, basically. Imagine pounding your forks for fruitcake. If you do love fruitcake and want a gorgeous one for the holiday season, the Calgary Unitarians have a sale each year to raise funds for … things Unitarians do.

 Email fruitcakes@calgaryunitarians.ca to order yours asap as they sell out quickly.

CRISP APPLE STRUDEL AND SCHNITZEL WITH NOODLES

Ok, ok, “My Favourite Things” isn’t technically a Christmas carol, but, like “Die Hard,” some things have become modern-day Christmas-break traditions. And, well, we really really love crisp apple strudel. As Austria is the country of origin, you’ll want to find one of Calgary’s many European bakeries for your apple strudel. We love Edelweiss Imports, European Bakery & Deli and Kruse’s Bakery. For your schnitzel and spaetzle (that’s the variety of noodle served in this dish) you can’t go wrong with the Bav + Tav in Bragg Creek and the Austrian Canadian Cultural Centre, which offers all manner of schnitzel.

THE 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS
That’s One Hungry True Love

The generous suitor in this favourite carol must like a portly sweetheart as they bring a lot of food to the table, including:

  • Eight dairy cows (complete with milking maids)
  • Six laying geese, presumably with an egg or two each
  • One partridge
  • What must be a great number of pears

Canadian comedy duo Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas (AKA Bob and Doug McKenzie) released a thoroughly Canuck version of the carol on SCTV in 1980. Not only is it hilarious, it also extols many favourites of the Great White North including four pounds of back bacon, three French toast, an indeterminate number of doughnuts and, of course, a beer.

Fun Food Fact: Partridge and pear pair nicely, particularly with thyme.

THREE-DECKER SAUERKRAUT AND TOADSTOOL SANDWICH WITH ARSENIC SAUCE
The Grinch

The Grinch is a mean one, but we feel with a couple of small tweaks, this dish wouldn’t be half bad. Swap bread for dough and you’ve got sauerkraut-and-mushroom pierogi (find yours at Heritage Deli and Bakery). Did you know that cherry pits and apple seeds contain arsenic? Swap the pits for the fruit and you can add cherry pierogi to your order and invite the Grinch for dinner…he’d know what to do with those figgy pudding people.

sugar plums

Sugar Plums