Christmas Party Food

Planning the menu for a Christmas party helps the preparation run smoothly. When planning the food for a Christmas party, consider your guests and the types of foods they may enjoy. Also, the food you serve should coincide with the theme of your Christmas party, while the beverages should complement the food. The key to remember when planning is not every dish must be homemade. Make your life easy and purchase items at local bakeries, grocery stores and club stores.

Function

• The purpose of Christmas party food is to feed your guests. However, it can also serve as your chance to showcase your culinary talents and to serve some of your favorite recipes. Often, foods served at events such as a Christmas party are only made a few times a year so sharing them with friends and family is even more special. When planning for Christmas party foods, don't forget the beverages. It's a good idea to have a variety of beverages available to guests: alcoholic, non-alcoholic, cold and warm. Again, the purpose of these beverages is to quench thirst and match the foods served.

Considerations

• When planning the menu for a Christmas party, it is important to consider your guests. Are any of your guests vegetarians? Does anyone have severe food allergies? Are there any dietary concerns among your guests? The more information you know, the better you can plan your menu. Another consideration when planning the menu for a Christmas party are the types of foods you serve. Most guests will stand as they eat and try to balance a beverage in one hand. Plan easy-to-eat foods that are not messy. After all, if something spills it's your house and you'll clean it up the next day.

Types

• Planning the menu for a Christmas party should follow the theme of your party. A sit-down meal works best for a small group of close friends and enables you to pull-out all the stops when it comes to food. A dessert party highlights the holiday season with sweet treats. However, these are sometimes hard to pair with the appropriate drinks, and can involve complicated recipes that take a while to prepare. A simpler way to taste the sweets of the season is to host a Christmas cookie party. Make several different types of holiday cookies for your guests to sample. An appetizer party allows hosts to prepare a variety of dishes for guests to enjoy. Hosts can also incorporate a few sweet treats into the appetizer party. For any Christmas party, don't forget the beverages. Carefully choose a variety of beverages for guests to enjoy that match the theme and foods served.

Stollen

Stollen's culinary lineage derives from a long history of festive holiday foods. Related foods are fruitcake, panettone, Dreikonigsbrot, three kings cake/king cake and babka. What do these sweet breads have in common? They were developed in Europe during Medieval times and were traditionally saved for holiday times because they were expensive. Cook of all times and places save their very best ingredients for special occasions. These special holiday yeast cakes were made with the cook's finest wheat flour, white sugar, butter, eggs, and dried fruit; some included rich filling, such as marzipan [almond paste]. Three kings cakes (related to New Orleans' King Cake) required similar ingredients and were/are connected with Twelfth Night and Mardi Gras.

"Holiday breads...

The spices used in...holiday breads...and their symbolic shapes and meaning vary. However, they are all based on the same type coffee-cake dough, and each is an integral part of some festivity in its native country...The Dresdener Stollen recipes...is the most famous of many regional variations of Germany's Christmas bread."

"Stollen

a rich fruit bread/cake from central Germany, especially the city of Dresden...the name is derived from an Old High German word, stollo, meaning a support or post. The characteristic shape of Stollen--oblong, tapered at each end with a ridge down the centre--is said to repersent the Christ Child in swaddling clothes, whence the name Christollen sometimes given to it. The Dresden Stollen, now known internationally as a Christmas specialty, is made from a rich, sweet yeast dough, mixed with milk, eggs, sugar, and butter, sometimes flavoured with lemon. Raisins, sultanas, currants, rum or brandy, candied peel, and almonds are worked into the dough. After baking, the Stollen is painted with melted butter and dusted with sugar. It may then be further decorated with candied fruits..."

Egg nog

The reason you won't find 16th century recipes for "egg nog" is the term didn't appear in print until the next century. Food historians/period recipes confirm English recipes for posset (esp. sack posset) were very similar to later egg nog. References to 16th century Jamestown egg nog were published after the from 18th century forwards, it is most likely the author was using a newer/more popular & accepted American term to denote an old traditional English holiday beverage.

How old is egg nog?

"By the mid-1760s patrons were drinking eggnog, juleps, sling and sanger in addition to the punch and toddy already available." 

---"Taverns and Tavern Culture in the Southern Colonial Frontier: Rowan County, North Carolina, 1753-1776," Daniel B. Thorpe, Journal of Southern History, Vol 4, no. 2, November 1996 

[1796] "Rich and creamy dessert drinks, such as eggnog and syllabub, reflect the English heritage in America, especially in the South. In England posset was a hot drink in which the white and yolk of eggs were whipped with ale, cider, or wine. Americans adapted English recipes to produce a variety of milk-based drinks that combined rum, brandy, or whiskey with cream. The first written reference to eggnog was an account of a February 1796 breakfast at the City Tavern in Philadelphia. Beginning in 1839 American cookbooks included recipes for cold eggnogs of cream, sugar, and eggs combined with brandy, rum, bourbon, or sherry, sprinkled with nutmeg. Southerners enjoyed a mix of peach brandy, rum, and whiskey."