How Christmas dinner traditions have evolved

Turns out, a Dutch chemist named Johannes van Houten could very well be my all-time hero.

Back in 1828, he invented a way to make chocolate into a solid bar, a form we’ve known and loved ever since.

In his annual Christmas history presentation to the Tri-Cities Exchange Club, William Beckmann shared that interesting tidbit and much more as his focus this year was on the creation and ongoing tradition of the holiday feast that families share.

I even learned what the heck “figgy pudding” is, but more on that later.

Beckmann, pastor emeritus at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Batavia, warned his audience at the St. Charles Veterans Center earlier this month that the history of the holiday feast might not consistently make our mouths water in anticipation.

“It is amazing what people used to eat,” Beckmann said. “They ate the most God-awful things in the Middle Ages.”

But mostly, customs become second nature for all of us, and that holds true of those on display at Christmas dinners.

A recent estimate of government statistics estimates about 27 hours go into the making of Christmas dinner. For centuries, and maybe even into 2023, the vast majority of those hours certainly were docked on the mom’s timesheet.

With that as a backdrop, Beckmann shared plenty of historic information.

The popular entrees

The traditional Christmas meat in England has been the goose. It’s what Bob Cratchit and his family had for Christmas in the 1843 Dickens’ classic “A Christmas Carol.”

And there were other culinary twists to the bird.

“As Mrs. Cratchit put it, ‘the younger Cratchits were steeped in sage and onions to the eyebrows,’” Beckmann noted.

Even Sherlock Holmes got involved with a Christmas goose who swallowed a jewel in Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Adventures of the Blue Carbuncle.”

In the U.S., we’re more inclined to choose turkey for our Christmas feast, to the tune of consuming about 22 million a year.

“Ben Franklin wanted to make the turkey the national bird,” Beckmann said. “He claimed the bald eagle had bad moral character, and the turkey was a much more respectable bird.”

The southern U.S. has the custom of deep frying the turkey, but that custom has been spreading north, he said.

With turkey being the feast of choice in America in the late 1800s, a “plain” Christmas dinner could have any of these options — roast turkey, mock turtle soup, stewed (cod) rock fish, French oyster pie, fricasseed chicken, potatoes, parsnips, beer venison with currant jelly, roast geese with applesauce, plum pudding, apple jelly and vanilla ice cream.

But things have a little more zing in Mexico, where the custom is to prepare a sauce of chocolate and chili peppers to go inside the turkey. In Spain, the bird is stuffed with truffles.

Across the pond

Something very different was popular in Britain and Scandinavia until about the 1600s — the boar’s head ceremony.

Legend has it that a student from Queen’s College was reading a book while walking in a forest preserve when a boar suddenly charged.

“Not having time to draw his sword, he jammed the book down the boar’s mouth,” Beckmann said. “The boar choked to death, the student brought the head back to the dining hall, had it roasted and fed to the students.

“Whether that was true or not is anyone’s guess,” Beckmann added.

Still, the holiday song “The Boar’s Head Carol” has been sung at Queen’s College for more than 500 years, he said.

Today, the look of a boar’s head is made with jellied meats using a mold and decorating it with rosemary, holly and bay before placing an orange in the mouth.

After the Reformation years (religious revolution of the western church in the 1600s) fish became a common part of British Christmas meals.

“The meal that Scandinavian Americans love to hate is lutefisk,” Beckmann explained. “It just really smells bad.”

Lutefisk is generally served with potatoes, vegetables and, for Norwegians, with a flat bread, melted butter or white sauce.

What’s for dessert?

Beckmann saved his label of “the most interesting thing” for what was served for dessert after a holiday meal years ago.

“Any roast meat is usually followed up with a serious hit of sugar,” Beckmann said. “Take your pick — cookies, cake, confectionery, pudding and pie. It’s like the final punch that sends us into a food-induced coma the rest of the evening.”

Beckmann took great joy in explaining “figgy pudding,” a treat mentioned in some Christmas carols and throughout holiday lore.

It was the dessert that the Cratchit family received after the Christmas meal. But what is it exactly?

“There are many recipes with all sorts of ingredients,” Beckmann said. “It could include grated apple or carrot, eggs, bread crumbs and spices.”

It had an important ingredient that gave it a significant lift. “Because the pudding was prepared about a month before serving, a great amount of whiskey or rum was added as a preservative.”

Christmas pudding was a different type, and was another of those holiday foods “you either loved or hate,” Beckmann noted.

It took about three weeks to prepare, and people began eating it to coat their stomach after fasting all day. To make it more exciting on Christmas Eve or Day, the hosts would place brandy on top of the pudding and set it on fire a few seconds before serving.

“Christmas pudding or cake never caught on in America,” he added. “The only remnant we have is the ever-popular fruit cake.”

Cookies and chocolate

For many families, it’s the baking of Christmas cookies that has been handed down for generations — or the building of a gingerbread house and taking it down after the holiday.

Europeans were enjoying Christmas cookies by the 1500s and immigrant families brought them to America in the 1600s. An American cookbook dated 1796 advised bakers to prepare Christmas cookies in early June, then store them in a clay pot in the cellar to give them their finest flavor.

Beckmann showed a baker’s rolling pin with artistic carvings that has been part of his family for more than 100 years.

“The rolling pin was used to make Pfeffernusse, a favorite cookie in Northern Europe, often delicately textured with anise, cinnamon, nutmeg and clove,” Beckmann said.

German bakers made Lebkuchen and also buttery cookies called Spritz, rolled and pressed Springerle, as well as cut-out sugar cookies, he added.

As for chocolate and its festive role, Beckmann acknowledged “we consume a lot of chocolate during the holidays.”

The earliest record of chocolate being harvested was around 1500 in a South America rain forest. Explorers brought the cacao bean back from the New World and the first chocolate houses opened for business in England in 1657, with many first offering it as a drink.

The aforementioned Johannes van Houten was a game changer in that he figured out how to make chocolate into solid candy bars.

Candy cane legend

“Unlike most forms of confectionery, candy canes make good tree decorations, as well as good candy,” Beckmann said.

Legend has it that the choirmaster of the Cologne Cathedral gave out candy canes to young choir members sometime during the 17th century.

“He was hoping to keep them quiet during services,” Beckmann noted.

There are no specific facts that indicate how the shape of the candy cane came to be, but some explanations through holiday lore indicate they were shaped like a shepherd’s staff, or the upside down “J” was for Jesus and the red color represented the blood of Jesus, Beckmann explained.

“One thing for certain, with the hook on the end, they make great decorations to fill the spaces on your tree.”

dheun@sbcglobal.net