by Diane Sagers

CORRESPONDENT

The Christmas holiday is a season of traditions. The holiday itself is a time for Christians to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, it also has a separate and distinctive feeling tied up in memories and traditions. Each family has their own with many similarities. The traditions that have become American originated in the varied countries of our ancestries.

Many of our traditions come from England and Germany. Even the name Christmas comes from England. Early Christians did not celebrate the birth of Christ -- that celebration began about three centuries after his birth. The holiday was first known as the "Feast of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ," but the English observed all their feast days as Mass days. Christ's Mass was soon shortened to Christmas.

The cozy fire of the Yule log comes from a Druid midwinter festival and the evergreen trees from Germany. The Druids also used holly and mistletoe as symbols of eternal life, and placed evergreen branches over doors to keep away evil spirits.

The Christmas tree came from Germany and some historians believe that Martin Luther was the first to light an evergreen. He attached lighted candles to the tree to simulate the starlit heaven that shone above Bethlehem on the first Christmas Eve.

The tradition of mistletoe came from a Scandinavian legend and evolved from a symbol of a mother's love to a symbol of romantic love. In recent centuries, it was believed that if a girl slept with mistletoe under her pillow, she would dream of her future husband and now it calls for a surreptitious or perhaps not so surreptitious, kiss.

And then there is Santa Claus. We barely recognize today's jolly figure from his origins as Saint Nicholas -- a noted and charitable bishop who lived in the fourth century A.D.

Along with these traditional symbols, we have traditional foods. Many of them show up in literature and music. Consider the figgy pudding mentioned in "We Wish You a Merry Christmas," and Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," the roast goose of "A Christmas Carol," and the sugar plums that danced in the heads of the children in "A visit from St. Nick," better known as "The Night Before Christmas." There is a long list of time-honored foods.

Exactly what was figgy pudding? It must have been something pretty spectacular if the carolers "won't go until they get some." If it is as great as all that, why don't we eat more of it now?

It shouldn't come as a surprise that in our hurry-up-and-cook, diet conscious society we aren't promulgating figgy pudding, which takes hours to cook and makes ample use of saturated fats for texture. The ingredients aren't readily available in most kitchen pantries. I mean, really, how many of us keep a supply of suet on hand? Suet is animal fat found near the kidneys. You'll be happy to know that it also makes mighty good soap, too, for those who are into making their own.

You mix together crumbs of bread with figs in it if available. Otherwise, you can get away with breadcrumbs and the addition of chopped dates, figs or apples. Add to that cream, eggs, sugar and milk, and the needed spices and lace it with cognac or rum. Put it into a metal bowl to bake. Set that bowl inside another bowl of boiling water and put them together into the oven for to bake for three or four hours. The resulting pudding is something of a cross between carrot cake and custard. Traditionally you would make an indentation in the top, fill it with brandy and light it on fire before serving. I have to admit it would make a spectacular entrance like that. Nothing to it. Anything to make the carolers happy -- and to get them to leave.

Steaming like this was a popular way of cooking in wood heated ovens -- which had variable heat -- because the heat around the food itself would stay fairly consistent in its boiling water sleeve. Even then, it might be a soggy mass when finished or a delightful -- if heavy -- pudding treat.

Then there are the dancing sugar plums. Now just what are they? Are these real plums, maybe dipped in sugar and infused with fairy dust to make them do pirouettes like the Sugar Plum Fairy of "The Nutcracker Ballet?"

Exactly what makes a sugarplum is a bit obscure, although there are recipes all over the place for both sugar coated plum fruits and small candies. There is even a tree that grows a variety of plum with that name. It is reputed to have even a sweet skin. It looks something like a very large grape and bears the name sugar plum.

Essentially, however, the sugar plum in the poem was likely a small round or oval shaped candy made of sugar. Recipes bearing the name sugar plum range from a sugar candy, to sugary mixtures of fruits, nuts and spices, to a cookie with oatmeal and cherries in it. You can probably make up your own recipe and call it a sugar plum -- who would know the difference?

Roast goose is also an English tradition associated with Christmas. This one, at least is pretty clear-cut if not a common choice in 21st century America. Goose was the fowl of choice of the middle and lower classes when they feasted. The wealthy could enjoy peacock or swan -- which, they related, made a fine show in a feast. It appears that the roast turkey has superseded these delicacies in our day and age and country.

Candy canes are one Christmas food we can all relate to. Sugar was very expensive in medieval Europe and pretty much confined to the wealthy except for very special occasions. However, in Arabia, physicians knew about and used sugar. They laced sugar through medicines -- or better yet infused the medicines into a candy stick -- to make it more palatable. Their expertise with the confection spread to Europe. It is not a big jump to imagine that the candy without the medicine soon became popular.

Legend has it that a German choirmaster of the 1600s handed out candy sticks to his young choir members to keep them quiet during long services. No one knows whether or not they were shaped as canes, and an assortment of explanations have evolved concerning the shape. Was the candy formed to a J for Jesus' initial or was it a shepherd's crook?

If you wish to join a group going "a wassailing," prepare for eggnog. The original drink, wassail, was a hot spiced wine kept for drinking to health. The wine and spice were both for the wealthy. The creamy eggnog drinks we enjoy during the Christmas season have come a long way from their origins and now eggnog may or may not be alcoholic. Perhaps the hot spiced fruit punches we drink are closer descendants from wassail.

Mincemeat pie was originally just that -- meat minced into tiny pieces and placed in a pie. It was a good way to use leftover meat and stretch the protein supply. Although the mincemeat pies we eat now contain no meat at all, it did in medieval times. It also contained dried fruits, sugar and spices.

As the centuries passed, the meat disappeared from the pies. In some cases the pies became known as mince pies rather than mincemeat.

We probably would not recognize mincemeat pie as it was made in the late 1800s. Recipes called for such ingredients as beef, apples, suet (there it is again), currants, sugar candied lemon or orange peel, citron and fine spices along with salt and lemon rind. Then again, perhaps we would -- all those fruit and sugar flavors probably overpower the meat.

Speaking of spicy foods, gingerbread is certainly not bread. Nevertheless, it has always been popular even with the misnomer. Perhaps that is in part because it is relatively inexpensive and a little goes a long way.

Don't forget the fruitcake. This too came from Britain. The cake is made with dried fruits, honey and nuts and the tradition -- if not the actual cake in your possession -- originated in the Middle Ages. Probably the "cakes" of the Middle Ages were more like bread with dried fruits incorporated. The rich fruit cakes were luxuries that were made for special occasions like weddings and Christmas.

You undoubtedly hove your own favorite Christmas foods. Perhaps centuries from now, someone will wonder what the delightful confections we eat actually were. Whatever you favorite Christmas food, enjoy some this holiday season.