What to have for Christmas dinner? Thanks to deeply-ingrained nineteenth-century holiday traditions, most of us expect Big Meat--a grand centerpiece roast beef, turkey, or ham. Many Southern families are content to repeat the tried-and-true Thanksgiving menu, which in my Texas family meant turkey, giblet gravy, canned cranberry sauce (whole-berry, not jellied), cornbread dressing (we never called it “stuffing,” and it never contained bread), mashed potatoes, pickled peaches, pumpkin pie and mincemeat pie. When my mother was growing up, she says, “We always had turkey for Thanksgiving, but Christmas was up to Mama. Sometimes it was ham; sometimes turkey. The most memorable Christmas menu was the year Mama cooked a turkey breast in champagne—a recipe she found in the Dallas News, probably. She was so excited about that, and it was delicious.”(more…)
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