www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Least Favorite Holiday Foods

Fruit cake - blech!

Turkey - meh, does nothing for me..

Love the stuffing though!

I agree about fruit cake, but so must all my contemporaries and family, because in all my years of life, I have, fortunately, *NEVER* encountered one at someone's home.

I once heard a joke that if you are sent a fruitcake as a gift in the mail, that it is probably the same one fruitcake sent around and around, regifted and resent, but never eaten!!! LOL!

Alice

FATHER SERGE:

My sister-in-law had a pumpkin chiffon pie this year that has the consistency of cheesecake. I'll see if I can get it for you.

BOB

ALICE:

My children tell me that when someone sends you a fruitcake for a holiday gift, especially at Christmas, that it's a symbolic slap-in-the-face. My brother sends me one each year because he knows I like it a lot and they keep telling me he really doesn't like me at all. LOL

Fruitcake must be some kind of northern West European thing. I understand that wedding cakes in some parts of the UK have been known to be fruitcakes. It seemed to be a particularly German and Scandinavian custom when I was growing up to offer a guest a piece on their arrival during the holiday season.

BOB

Every year after Christmas I see on TV where they hold the annual fruit cake toss. They put the cakes in a catapult and launch them.

My least favorite holiday food would have to be the pumpkin pie that has already be disparaged. I just don't like it, but I eat with a smile because I don't want to get slapped . Another "food" I don't like is the turkey neck. Don't ask why but its become a Green family tradition to cook up the poor bird's gizard and then cut it up and share it among family.

Now on the flip side I also celebrate Hanukkah. My least favorite foods for the festival of lights are as follows:

Kugel (no food that moves by itself is really food)

Gefilte Fish (all I know is that its Kosher, so that means the clean parts of the fish must be used, yet I often wonder which parts the Rabbi surveying the process considers "Kosher")

I loooooove Latkes, but I hate it when people put applesauce on them.

My Bubbe's Matzah Ball Soup is awesome, the store bought Matzah Balls however are like eating led that sinks to the bottom of your stomach and stays there.

If it was made by one of the yentas it tastes wonderful, if it was made by someone under the age of 60 it may still be good, if it was made by someone under the age of 40 throw it under one of the babies' highchairs to make it look like they dropped it. Jewish food takes years to perfect, like a good wine takes years to mature!

I've never been sent a fruitcake, though a relative in rural NY sent my parents one a few years ago. I believe they sent it along the line to someone else.

I generally like food but I do avoid the pink marshmallow blob at Thanksgiving dinners. My least favorite would have to be black-eyed peas, at least if they are only boiled.

LOL ! They are my least favorite holiday food, too, usually. But every once in a while, there is a good one . . . one that actually tastes good and won't break my teeth.

-- John

"It would kill a man twice, just for eating a slice of Miss Fogarty's Christmas cake"!

Fr. Serge

Pea soup at Svatyj Vecur! Need I say more!

Ah dear and good Father, one must, at times, dig deep to decipher your posts...

...so, I am thinking that this Miss Fogarty is similar to our American 'Mrs. Field's' (who produces cookies), and that her pies are really good, until I did a google search, to see that tis an Irish song!

Respectfully,
Alice

http://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/miss_fogartys_christmas_cake.htm

(and by the way, the lyrics are adorable and amusing--I sent it to my husband and heard him chuckle too!)

Next, I suppose, is to check I-Tunes to see if they have it on recording! I think it's Percy Fields song, and ever popular this time of year!

Evlogia Kyriou!

Fr. Serge

I was raised a basic hillbilly, so my Christmas food traditions were rather bland, but I married into a very ethnic Slovakian/Polish/Byzantine family. The Christmas feast is purportedly very traditional fare. Its mostly very tasty, but the first course is always a very thick mushroom soup that is potentially the most ghastly concoction I have ever tasted. My wife, her parents, and her brothers save jars of the leftovers to savor for weeks, while me and my children use it as paint thinner. [*shudder*] I don't mean to offend anyone here who is big into that kind of ethnic fare for Christmas, but egads! It is NASTY!!

Again, de gustibus non est disputandum. What you might do, though, is peruse some recipes for the Holy Supper and find an alternative to suggest (like a fasting variety of borsch, which is delicious in my inexpert opinion).

If any of your wife's Polish relatives whom you already know to be a good cook can make some flaki (not for a fast day), try it - before you ask what the ingredients are. I rather like it, but if I had known in advance what it was made from, a crowbar and a ramrod would not have gotten it into my mouth, let alone down my throat!

Fr. Serge

Blahoslovy!

Father Serge, wouldn't eating flaki count as a penance?

Your Unworthy Son,

Dr. Eric