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Mouthing Off | Christmas dinner without turkey: the dish has nothing to do with festival’s origins, so let’s celebrate Jesus by eating what he would have
- Japan eats KFC for Christmas and Poland eats fish. Turkey is an arbitrary, Eurocentric dish that is a pain to cook, and not what Jesus would’ve eaten long ago
- Why not instead eat food that Mary and Joseph’s Middle Eastern contemporaries might have had, from barley bread to lamb stew, fish, milk, honey and olives?
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They say it’s the most wonderful time of the year. Despite the excess commercialism and Mariah Carey jingle overkill – everybody still loves Christmas.
It is a holiday that transcends religion and culture, and literally has something for everyone. I’ve always found it odd but heartwarming that Christmas lights and decorations are embraced so fully in non-Christian countries.
To see Santa Claus in Shinto Japan, Christmas trees in the malls of the predominantly Muslim Middle East, and fake snow on display in tropical, Buddhist majority Thailand – all of it is hilariously anachronistic.
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We’ve also accepted the Western tradition of feasting on turkey with all the trimmings – or maybe a glazed ham with decorative pineapple bits – as a fundamental Christmas convention. Yes, these holiday foods are delicious, but they have nothing to do with Christmas’ origin.
Mary and Joseph were a Middle Eastern couple; the manger didn’t have lights and jingle bells – these things are the constructs of advertising campaigns. Also, they’d have been hard pushed to get their hands on a turkey in the Middle East back then, seeing as the bird is native to North America.
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