The holidays are full of fun, frolic, and potentially fright
if you’re dealing with stressful travel or social situations. Whatever that
happens in the next two weeks, there’s plenty of good food to be had. I’d like
to know how you’re celebrating Christmas and New Year -- what you’re eating and
drinking, specifically. It doesn’t have to be pure, 100% Vietnamese food.
Christmas. We’re Catholic so we go to mass on Christmas Eve and then come home,
take off our nicey church clothes, and eat for a few hours. In
we attended
home for Reveillon, the French term for a holiday dinner. We’d open our gifts when the clock struck twelve that evening. Once we arrived in the
we got lazy and went to mass earlier, but never gave up the gift opening time.
We actually moved it up!
until morning to rip into the wrapped gifts. They also didn’t understand why we
made dozens of yule log cakes (buche de Noel cake) to gift to friends, family
and neighbors. On Christmas Eve, we had roast goose or turkey with stuffing
featuring sticky rice and chestnut. It was and continues to be a delectable
mash-up of wonderful food.
For many years I made Christmas Eve dinner for my parents
but next Monday, my mother and I are doing it together. I’m also going to enlist
my nieces and nephews, who are old enough to handle knives well. Mom is roasting Cornish game hens stuffed with the aforementioned dressing with a little cognac in there for good measure. (As
always, my sister Tasha will seek out the crusty bits of rice for herself.) My
mother will also make a creamy corn and shiitake mushroom soup, our modern take on the Chinese canned cream
corn soup.
rolls. We’re in Dungeness crab season where I live so fresh crab meat will be
mixed into the shrimp-pork-jicama-and-cellophane noodle filling. Lots of fresh
lettuce and Vietnamese herbs and nuoc cham sort of make cha gio our salad
course. We’ll also roast cauliflower because it's simple and something tasty that I picked
up this year. My mother loves sweet potatoes so I’ll have to figure something
out for them. We need a green vegetable so it’ll be green beans. For dessert?
Assorted cookies and small pastries that I’ve baked and whatever that my mom
has around that she wants to tantalize us with. Here's a recap of our menu:
Creamy Corn and Shiitake Mushroom Soup
Cha Gio Imperial Rolls with Lettuce, Fresh Herbs and Nuoc Cham
Roasted Cauliflower with Indian Spices
A Sweet Potato Something (perhaps with Ginger and Tangerine Peel)
Stir-fried Green Beans
Roasted Cornish Game Hens with Sticky Rice and Chestnut StuffingFresh Fruit
Assorted Homemade Sweets
sleep well on December 24.
Let us all know.
It can be as simple as posting your menu as a comment below. Add a link to a
photo, if you want to make our mouths water more! Or email me a photo of your holiday
spread and I’ll post it here.
Simon Bao says
Andrea, for this year's Christmas celebration we won't have anything resembling a Vietnamese feast, nor even many Vietnamese dishes. (This Christmas Eve, we're doing a kind of Julbord, a Christmas smorgasbord.) But, two years ago my housemates asked me to come up with the Christmas Eve menu, and to slap a Vietnamese spin on it. Not easy, as I grew up without any Christmas traditions and no matter how often I ask around, I seldom learn of any traditions among other Viets.
Friends and colleague
Andrea Nguyen says
Simon, you make me laughing and feel hungry at the same time...
Simon Bao says
Andrea, a few other *emerging* traditions I can share with you. Not well-established yet, but perhaps on their way...
* Holiday Quickbreads: These started with my godbrother making them and then giving them to us and also giving them to Vietnamese in the neighborhood. Then it slowly transformed into people asking him to make extra loaves so they could also pass them around, take them to parties, surprise friends. The small mini-loaves. Sweet quickbreads with fruits and nuts aren't unusual
Laurent says
Hey Andrea,
your reveillon menu looks delicious. Ours will be typically French: a way of staying close to home even when far away. We will eat foie gras as an appetizer (I tried Thomas Keller's "au torchon" recipe this year and hopefully it will taste good) followed by guinea fowl stuffed with an herb butter and accompanied with cauliflower gratin (a coincidence we both thought about serving poultry and cauliflower in the same meal). My friend Bertrand will cook Gruyere gougeres as an amuse and
Andrea Nguyen says
Simon, I don't believe you about the 3 wise peas. When did you start seeing them in Philly? I'm going to have to check out your Viet food myth.
Laurent, ooooh, foie gras au torchon. That is quite a coincidence with the cauliflower and fowl. It is the season for vegetables like cauliflower. I added a romanesco to thrill the kids, who thought they were eating little Christmas trees. Thank you for your comments about the book. Heritage and culture are very important for me when it comes to food.
Ho
Cynde says
My family had always celebrated Christmas Eve and opening presents by midnight. And of course, lots of food. This year, we had Chicken Salad (Goi Ga), Cha Gio, Com Chin, Mi Xao, Hu Thiu Xao, Chicken curry soup (Ga Care) eat with french bread, and for desert we had che (three kinds of beans). For enterntainment, the adults gamble and drank Martell....while the kids enjoying opening their presents.
I will be marrying a filipino guy soon and, I have told myself not to lose my culture and tradition.
Andrea Nguyen says
Cynde, nice Christmas Eve menu! That's so funny that your family opened gifts early too. Glad to know that ours was in good company.
The only gambling that happened at our house on Monday night was a fierce game of Monopoly.
Try out the pho ga and see what happens. You can do it! Once you get the knack for it, come up with your personal version.
Andy says
Having travelled throughout Asia a lot over the past 10 years, I can only say that it is a wonderful and beautiful part of the world. So different to what we have in the west, and the food, people and culture are so fascinating and every country I have been to, including Vietnam, Laos, the Phillipines and Korea all have something different to offer. It's funny that each country will have some different way to celebrate, Christmas and New Year though. And the food....don't get me started on the