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Xmas dishes differ from place to place
ABU DHABI — There is a lovely smell of sweet spices in the Sheraton Hotel’s lobby.
“It’s coming from here,” says Bernhard Koenig, one of the hotel’s chefs, pointing at a gingerbread house. “It is actually made of real gingerbread and icing sugar, so you can eat it!”
Koenig, who comes from Bavaria, Germany, wanted to do something special for Christmas this year. And he hit upon the idea of making a gingerbread house.
“The lebkuchen (gingerbread) house is a very old Christmas tradition, originating in Germany,” adds Koenig, while speaking to Khaleej Times about how Christmas is spent in his country.
It is now part of Christmas traditions in several other European countries. For the winter holiday, apart from gingerbread, Germany is also famous for stollen, a heavy fruit cake and mulled wine, a boiled mixture of red wine, tea, orange juice, sugar, cinnamon and cloves.
“Our Christmas cake is made with a dough exactly like the one for pizza, mixed with fruits that ideally should be marinated for a year. It is heavy, but delicious,” says the chef.
German sweets
Other typical German Christmas sweets are cookies made with nuts and real peppercorns.
“I used to bake these cookies two weeks before Christmas, together with my children. In fact, Christmas is for children,” says Koenig.
Ashild Kjok, deputy head of the mission at the Norwegian Embassy in Abu Dhabi, remembers how Christmas is spent at home, “On December 23, we decorate the Christmas tree and unlike other countries, we start the celebrations on Christmas Eve. At 4pm, we go to the church and after the service, all church bells ring throughout the country. We begin the feast at 5pm when baby Jesus was born. After we eat, we walk in a circle round the Christmas tree, holding hands and singing. Then it’s time to open the presents. We end the evening with coffee and cakes.”
Christmas dishes in Norway vary from region to region, but the most common ones are mutton ribs or cod, followed by a special rice pudding.
A very old Christmas tradition is baking the seven types of cakes. According to Kjok, Christmas is still a family affair, people travelling to their villages, where they spend a week with the whole family. “On Christmas Day, everyone stays at home, as it’s considered impolite to visit a friend,” adds the diplomat.
In Ireland, it is traditional to leave mince pies and a bottle of Guinness outdoors as a snack for Father Christmas, while in Britain, children write letters to Father Christmas listing the gifts they want and throw them into the fireplace. This way, the letters will float up the chimney and fly quickly to the North Pole, where Father Christmas lives, it is believed.
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