Christmas preparations.

[David Thorpe]

Having spent many years in South Texas, I was introduced to deep-fried turkey, pan de polvo and home-made tamales. All are delightful holiday treats.

[kiltedrennie]

Clootie dumpling and Christmas pudding are both very similar suet and fruit based puddings. Christmas pudding was also traditionally steamed in a cloth but steaming in a bowl or basin is now more popular. Happy to pm you my nan's recipe if you fancy a go! You've still got time but need to be quick as they need to mature for a few weeks.

I'd love to give it a go. Thanks!

[usonian]

Last year's thread about suet puddings may be of interest here! Christmas puddings don't seem too widely consumed here in the US, at least from my experience growing up in New England. I made Nigella Lawson's Christmas pudding recipe (using frozen vegetable shortening instead of suet out of deference to a vegetarian family member) and it exceeded all expectations - I think it's going to become a tradition. It was really very delicious, and I'm looking forward to making it again this year. Maybe make a second batch too, to divide into some smaller puddings to send as gifts to a select few far-flung friends.

I've never heard of a Christmas-type pudding as a Thanksgiving tradition, but why not? One year I made a Boston Cream Pie (using Gale Gand's recipe) as a change from the usual apple/pumpkin/blueberry/mincemeat pies you usually see at Thanksgiving. It got such raves that I've made it 11 years running!

[rmccool]

Thanksgiving dinner will likely include turkey (stuffed and roasted) and ham (baked) with a variety of side dishes including mashed potatoes, other vegetables (corn, beans and/or peas, etc.), casseroles, sweet potatoes, cranberry jelly, gravy, bread and/or biscuits (what our UK friends would call scones), and a few desserts.

In our family, Christmas dinner will be a bit lighter, with only one meat, few sides, and with more emphasis on desserts.

For us, Thanksgiving dinner is a larger and somewhat more formal meal. The principal dishes tend to be hearty and savory. Christmas meals are generally a lighter luncheon and supper, with lots of "grazing" on snacks and desserts throughout the day.

That's just the way things work for my family, however; it may or may not bear any relationship to what other American families do.

[English Bloke]

Simon?

Here you go... Puddin' for one is your answer. Less than a minute in the microwave takes you to pudding heaven. The rest can... keep their profiteroles.

[Grizzly]

Excellent idea John. Don't mind if I do. Although I am generally full up by pudding time. It's the Buck's Fizz followed by the sherry, wine, port, brandy. Sadly no room left for food.

[Pleater]

In Yorkshire the Christmas cake is usually brought out along with - cheese. Particularly the white crumbly Cheshire. It is perhaps an acquired taste, but well worth the trial.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

[StevieR]

In Yorkshire the Christmas cake is usually brought out along with - cheese. Particularly the white crumbly Cheshire. It is perhaps an acquired taste, but well worth the trial.

Anne the Pleater :ootd:

Yep, this is something we've always done. Don't know why, there's no Yorkshire blood in the family. There was always something very satisfying about sitting down to a late supper on Christmas day, (with the kids tucked up safely in bed) a slice of cake, a piece of cheese (Lancashire tasty in my case) and a glass of Highland Park!

[Destin_scot]

Differences between Thanksgiving and Christmas "feasts", not much; both seem to be excuses to forget about diets, and succumb to at least 2 of the 7 deadly sins.

Thanksgiving for me is a pretty big gathering of relatives and friends, usually somewhere between 100 and 200 people show up. It's pretty much a pot-luck meal with people bringing a dish of some kind. Vegetables, salads, desserts, breads. Meats are: turkey: roasted, smoked, deep-fried; baked/smoked-cured ham; roast pork. Brunswick Stew.

Christmas is a much, much smaller gathering, usually with friends and sometimes with family. meal wise: a beef roast or steak, sometimes a turducken, (if you don't know what this is, google it), a starch of some kind, bread, vegetables or salad, and a dessert of some kind.

both are usually finished with a good whiskey/whisky of some kind.

[StevieR]

At Christmas, when I was small, it was always roast turkey and all the trimmings - chestnut stuffing, pigs in blankets, roast potatoes, parsnips, sprouts, carrots, bread sauce and cranberry jelly and proper gravy - followed by Christmas pud. Always served at lunch time with washing up done in time for the Queen's speech. A buffet of cold turkey, homemade sausage rolls, cheese, pickles and salad with mince pies, Christmas cake and trifle was the tea time treat. There was always plenty and various leftovers cooked up in different ways that saw us through the next few days (no doubt inspired by the waste not want not attitude of my parents and grandparents for whom rationing after WW2 didn't end until the mid '50s).

More or less the same now, but the main meal on Christmas day has moved to the evening and the turkey is usually supplemented by a brace of pheasants or mallard. The buffet has moved to Boxing Day and both days are always family affairs. We still like to make the most of the leftovers, so bubble and squeak, turkey curry and turkey soup remain firm favourites. If we are hosting it's about twelve on Christmas Day and twenty on Boxing Day. It's a double whammy this year so we are going to be very busy!