Signature Holiday Dishes from Around the World

By Rianna Morgan & Sasha Weintraub

The holidays are a magical time where family and friends come together and celebrate by exchanging gifts, doing fun activities, decorating, etc. The gathering and eating of different foods is an important part of celebration. Each culture has special dishes and drinks that people enjoy during the holiday season. In this article, we would like to take some time to appreciate a few that people in our community love. 

Italy:

Pizzelles are a popular Italian dessert made during the Christmas season. They are waffle cookies made with flour, eggs, sugar, and butter. They are cooked in a pizzelle iron that presses snowflake or floral designs onto them. 

Another Italian dessert that is made around Christmas is anisette cookies. These are soft cookies with a slight licorice flavor, which comes from the anise extract used to make them. They are coated with icing and colorful sprinkles, which makes them a popular dessert for the holidays. Rianna Morgan, a freshman at Nyack High School, says, “I used to help my grandma make them when I was younger. We would take the dough and stretch it out (we called it a snake), then roll them up into lollipop-shapes.” 

Poland/Ukraine:

Borscht is a popular dish made for Christmas Eve in Eastern European countries like Poland and Ukraine. It is a soup made of meat stock and vegetables like beetroots. Moloaa Daterao, a freshman at Nyack High School, says that her family makes this dish each year for Christmas. 

Caribbean:

Around the holidays, Sorrel is a Caribbean island favorite, especially in Trinidad, Jamaica, and Guyana. It’s a drink made from hibiscus flowers, ginger root, sugar, and various spices. It’s a deep red, slightly bitter juice. 

Black Cake, also known as Rum Cake, is another very popular Caribbean dessert. It's a fruitcake, made with dried fruits soaked in rum or wine for weeks, sometimes even months in advance, giving the cake its dark color. It contains many flavors and spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove. 

Guatemala: 

Chuchitos, a popular Guatemalan dish for the holidays, are a small, firm food made of masa dough with an inside filling of either chicken or pork, and sauce. After it's fully wrapped in aluminum foil, it's placed in boiling water for 4-5 hours. Lilian Lemus, a junior here at NHS says, “This is an annual tradition that's gone on for many generations, and typically the women in my family come together to make this for everybody. We specifically only make it for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years.” 

Puerto Rico:

Pasteles are a traditional dish in many Latin American countries. In Puerto Rico, they are mainly made around Christmas time. Meats like pork and chicken are wrapped in masa dough made from banana, plantains, or yams, then steamed or boiled in a banana leaf. Zoraida Galban, a freshman at Nyack High School, says that her family makes these for Christmas. 

India:

Plum Cake, an Indian Christmas dessert, is a fruitcake made with dried fruits, nuts, spices, and, surprisingly, no plums. After mixing the ingredients together and baking it in the oven, it's topped off with powdered sugar. Hannah Varughese, a freshman at NHS, says, “My aunt visits every year during the holiday season and me, my grandma, and my aunt bake plum cake for the entire family.”