Consider This from NPR - The Holiday Dishes That Are Never Missing From Your Table

Episode Date: December 24, 2021

After everything that has happened this year, it can feel difficult to find things to celebrate. So we're using this episode to spread a little joy, through something everyone can relate to: food. We asked all of you what holiday dish is never missing from your table, and you answered – from seafood gumbo in Louisiana to Hungarian Beigli to traditional New Mexican cookies called Biscochitos and more. Be careful listening on an empty stomach. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail]. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

When it comes to gumbo, Fallon Chasson is no authenticity police. I'm not going to get into the argument of what if it needs to be red or if it has to have tomatoes or can't have tomatoes, whatever. Chasson hails from South Louisiana. So for her, it's just not the holiday season without that aromatic, savory stew on the table. I mean, it is the state's official cuisine after all. So it starts off with the roux, which is like oil and flour, and then sauteed veggies are thrown in there. And then you kind of have the freedom with whatever else. Like my mom always does like a chicken and sausage.

In the South, gumbo recipes have been passed down from generation to generation to generation, ever since the turn of the 19th century. Some gumbos have meat, some have seafood, some are brothy, some are really thick. The recipes can vary with their own special twists. I think like the best ones are the seafood ones just because, I don't know, seafood's just such of like, it's so great and rich here. In her totally unbiased opinion, Chasson says her Aunt Debbie's recipe is the best because it stays true to ingredients that may not be as popular these days. She like is authentic to the it being a poor man's food, like it's whatever you have available.

So I think a lot of people omit the livers and gizzards because like we don't have to use all the parts of the meat anymore. Like you could just buy a piece of chicken and you'll get flavor but hers is so special because of that richness that those like organ meats provide and just the simple act of eating her aunt's gumbo with her family that's another thing that makes it so special but it is another pandemic year on top of that families in Louisiana are still working to repair their lives and homes in the wake of Hurricane Ida. So Chasson wasn't really sure if her Aunt Debbie would be up for making Christmas gumbo at her house this year. It didn't feel right for me to be able to be like, so what's the Christmas plans, everybody? Like, what are we doing?

Because things are still so uncertain. Like, it's not that much different from when I was home in September. There's electricity, obviously, that's a huge gain. And there's running water, but nothing's the same. But then she called her aunt. And she's like, yeah, I made the roux that cold day we had in October. And I'm like, what? Her Aunt Debbie had already started preparing this gumbo for the holidays two months ago. In October on that day, she said, she said there was a cold front. So she opened up her windows, put on some old clothes and spent

like all afternoon making 10 cups of roux. That's a lot. At that point, electricity had just been restored. Her house was still in really bad shape. So she was like already hopeful that this would come to fruition. So even through it all, Aunt Debbie's gumbo will be on the table. The word she kept on using was a labor of love, just because of the time-consumingness of it. So I know every year it matters a lot, but to me this year it probably matters more because she's still putting in the same amount of love in like different environmental constraints. Like I do think this might be one moment of maybe forgetfulness of everything that's happening. Consider this.

After everything that has happened this year, it can be difficult to find things to celebrate. So we're taking today to spread a little joy through something everyone can relate to, food. We asked all of you what holiday dish is never missing from your table, and we will hear what you all have been cooking up or just patiently waiting to eat.

From NPR, I'm Elsa Cheng and I am hungry. It is Friday, December 24th. This message comes from WISE, the app for doing things in other currencies. Send, spend, or receive money internationally and always get the real-time mid-market exchange rate with no hidden fees. Download the WISE app today or visit WISE.com. T's and C's apply. It's Consider This from NPR. So this year, a lot of holiday plans may be changing once again, but some traditions do remain, especially those centered around a good meal. I'm sure every culture has something like this, that it's a whatever you have, let's throw it in here and make it stretch. Like you're

going to eat on it for days. There's always enough to go around. That's Fallon Chasson again. She's one of the listeners who talked about their holiday table traditions that bring everyone together and that reflect their roots. The responses we got made us curious, they made us smile, and they definitely made us really hungry. Here's more of what you shared with us about what's on the menu for the season. I'm Julie Piscini, and I'm from Yardley, Pennsylvania. A tamale is a ground corn mixture

around like a protein, typically. And then around that whole thing is a corn husk. And then that is steamed. We fill ours with pork. People fill them with chicken. My mom doesn't eat meat. So my dad will fill hers with black beans. It's not so much about the tamales or the food. It's the fact that our family that came from Mexico, they moved into a very homogenous area south of Pittsburgh. My great-grandfather married my great-grandmother, and she was Italian, and that was not okay back then. Basically, a large portion of her family kind of ostracized her. Food is, it's like our language in our family. And you know,

for me, like the memories are of my father always retelling us these stories of my great-grandfather and my great-grandmother and these challenges that they faced being a mixed family in the 1920s in a little coal mining town outside of Pittsburgh. It ends up being this knot, and it stands kind of to remind us of these memories whenever the tamales kind of come to the dinner table. It's my dad starting to have that conversation with us, and it's what keeps each generation kind of aware of this history and these hardships that our early family had in establishing themselves in this country. And you know, this is always going to be part of us. My name is Jing Chu and my favorite holiday food is hot pot or huo guo.

I think of it as the Asian version of fondue. You have this pot in the middle and you cook up this delicious broth and you have all of these different types of food like vegetables, seafood, meats, and you cook that together. And it's a very communal experience and you have all these dipping sauces. And it's just this really yummy, beautiful broth slash stew that you get to make with other people. I remember not wanting to eat the vegetables like bok choy or bai cai, but because that was something that my family wanted to eat that was always included in hot pot. So that was something that I had to work my way around. And I think for me, that's part of the communal experience because everyone is sharing what is in this one pot in the middle of your table.

And so everyone is contributing something and maybe also sacrificing a piece of their taste in order to experience just that communal nature of hot pot. I'm Geza Tatraya and I live in Barnard, Vermont. I agree. It's such a fundamental part of Hungarian Christmas. There are actually two forms of it. One is a poppy seed filling and the other is a walnut filling. And the dough is a buttery, eggy roll. And you roll it out flat and then put in one roll. Poppy seed filling, you spread it across the dough, and then the other one, the walnut filling, and then you roll it up and put some egg glaze

on it and pop it in the oven eventually, and it's absolutely delicious. Fifteen years ago, we bought a beautiful house in Vermont, and I thought of adapting this wonderful recipe by using Vermont maple syrup as the sweetener instead of sugar into both the filling and the dough. And it works like magic. Last year, my wife and I spent Christmas alone in Vermont. But this year, I get to spend it with my daughter and her two little boys. They actually were asking for this and would I make it for them so yes of course my name is Tom Hudgens and I live in Albuquerque New Mexico my favorite holiday dish is traditional New Mexico bizcochitos which are a very particular

cookie they're made with lard and not butter, and they have some anise seed in them, and there's a little bit of booze, either wine or brandy, and then they're rolled in cinnamon sugar or sprinkled with cinnamon sugar before baking. And I'm very much alone in this. I don't know anyone else who does this,

but I like to render my own lard to make Biscuit Cheetos. Biscuit Cheetos were one of the foods that I held on to even throughout the many decades that I was away from New Mexico. I live back here now, but even in my many years away, Biscuit Cheetos were a through line that I always, you know, every few years at least, tried to make a batch of. My name is Amy Delsing, and one of our favorite foods is called rusk. It's kind of a twice-baked bread, sort of like biscotti. So you bake a loaf of it, and then you slice it, and then you bake it again. And the thing that makes it unique is cardamom. When I was a child, we would all get together at grandma and grandpa's and we would

just know that the rusk was going to be there. Like you can smell it, that great roasty, toasty cardamom smell throughout the whole house. And then grandma would have this giant bowl of rusk. That was the first place that anybody stopped, before hugs or anything you'd go straight to the rusk bowl and pick out a piece. Walking into a kitchen and smelling that rusk it kind of flips the switch from hey this is just an ordinary day to oh this is family this is home this is family. This is home. This is holiday. That was Fallon Chasson, Julie Piscini, Jing Chu, Geza Tatreye, Tom Hudgens, and Amy Delsing. Our thanks to them for sharing their stories. Also, thanks to producer Elena Burnett and editor Mallory Yu, who gathered these voices. You are listening to Consider This from NPR. I'm Elsa Chang.