The holiday season is a time for gathering with loved ones and sharing a meal.
For December’s Big Question, we asked: What food do you just have to eat during the holiday season?
Here’s what some of you said.
Susan Sherrouse, Concord: The food I have to have during the holiday season is my father’s lasagna. My late dad was the son of Italian immigrants to this country. When I was a kid, the house would be permeated with this rich, tomato-y, cheesy pasta smell, and to me that was Christmas, because we never really had it any other time of the year. And when my dad passed away, my husband took that mantle. My late husband was Cajun, and he kind of twisted it and made it his own with some Cajun spices and Cajun meat.
Silas Little, Francestown: The foods I must have at this time of year are stollen, pulla, springerle, and lebkuchen. My favorite of those is stollen because it's an old family recipe. By my estimates, [my family has] been making it for 100 years. I start generally right after Thanksgiving, because I make a bunch of it and I ship it out to my family members.
Celia Randall, Brookfield: It would be a real problem if I did not put a hot tourtiere on our buffet table. Tourtiere is a French-Canadian pork pie. I call on the spirits of my mother, and her mother, and all of the family in the village of St. Gabriel in the province of Quebec. I think of them when I’m making it. My daughters, hopefully they’ll learn to make it and remember me, and their grandmother Dorothy.
Ann, Hollis: My maternal grandmother in Iowa, who died at 112, cooked for our holidays until she was 105, when she needed to go into the care center. My sister in Connecticut, and I in New Hampshire, still love to make grandma’s cranberry-pineapple-apple relish. I get out the old metal meat grinder to grind the frozen cranberries, and can picture grandma grinding away in her kitchen.
Jim Gocha, Plymouth: The food that the family needs to have during the holidays are damn cookies. The story of the damn cookies is that one time, I asked my daughter, “Margaret could you get me a jam cookie.” And she goes toddling off, and all of a sudden there’s this uproar from the kitchen . And my wife runs in the room and she says, “What did you ask Margaret?” ‘Cause apparently Margaret went in and said, “Dad wants a damn cookie.” And so ever since then, which was 20 years ago, we’ve had damn cookies every Christmas.
Nancy Smith, Enfield: Our Christmas Eve tradition is to serve pozole (pork and hominy soup) and homemade tamales. Both are served with a good, spicy red chili sauce. We lived in New Mexico for a couple of years, and have maintained the tradition since then.
Michelle Pomije, Keene: The one dish I look forward to the most is the one that tastes awful, the one that comes out exactly the way you don’t want it to. The family favorite is the year I put too much cinnamon in the spaghetti sauce. That’s because I like remembering those silly stories of imperfections. Because holidays don’t need to be perfect, we just need to be together.
