Dessert - an uncountable variety of home baked cakes. The gingerbread loaf and poppy seed roll are most traditional. My fave this year was a layered thing I just found out my grandma made from a recipe she got from her mom. When you meet me please pester me to make it for you

Beverage - you wash everything down with a smoked fruit ‘kompot’. ‘Kompot’ is a Slavic, usually summertime, drink made by boiling fruit. The xmas version is made from plums, apples and pears preserved earlier in the year by smoking them. Think fruity lapsang souchong

6th course - carp fish. We’re 320miles from the sea but the area has hundreds of years of tradition of carp fish farming in ponds. Usually bought live a couple days ago and kept in a bathtub until the day. Both breadcrumbed + fried, and home smoked.

5th course - pierogi. Wheat dough dumplings filled with foraged fungi, sourkraut, fresh cabbage mix). My grandparents make about 200-300 of those (and ‘uszka’) in the lead up to xmas. One has a hazelnut nut hidden inside and whoever gets it is responsible for washing the dishes😈

4th course - butter beans in sour apple sauce. It’s exactly what the name says, and a delicious dish facilitating the transition from soups to solid dishes. The butter beans are home grown, cause we found the varieties in stores not large and buttery enough

3rd course - barszcz with ‘uszka’. Spicy, sour beet broth created by hot-fermenting beets with garlic for a few weeks. Served with little dumplings called ‘uszka’ (‘lil ears’ due to their resemblance to pigs ears) willed with, you guessed it, foraged mushrooms. My personal fave

2nd course - mushroom broth. A ridiculous amount of dried foraged porcini and birch boletes go in along a token carrot, onion, and celeriac, creating dark brown to black, strongly but pleasantly bitter broth served with croutons. Only served on xmas, the family favourite

1st course - żurek. The soup is made out of diluted whole rye flour fermented to create a rich sour taste. It’s my American pals’ Polish fave dish and usually enriched with sour cream or sausage and full of marjoram. The xmas version is enriched with broth of mushrooms we foraged

Imagine the most Hollywood-stereotypical “proper, homemade food” obsession of an Italian grandma. This is my entire family, but Polish. Let me take you on a tour of our traditional Christmas Eve dishes! 🧵

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