Traditional Meals

I believe in traditional meals. Its maybe because I acquired it from my old folks and since we are somehow influenced by chinese culture and beliefs, I prepare these traditional meals during new year's eve celebration: noodles for long life, fish with silver scales, rice cakes, green leafy vegetables, 13 kinds of fruits for wealth and prosperity. I also follow this rule, not to prepare meat from "winged" animals like chicken because it symbolizes that money will fly away from you if you do so...Sounds funny but there's no harm in believing right?

Hi, For our family tradition,during new year eve or special occasion, we will cook more special dishes to celebrate. Let's say during Chinese New Year Eve, we will cook those special dishes like abalone,sharkfin,sea cucumber or having a steamboat with our family members. It is kinda of reunion dinner for the family members and good feast is always the main priority. Of course, for normal day, we can always cook those special dishes,but not everyone can afford to all those expensive dishes everyday.

Christmas and Easter are the only holidays centred around meals. Traditionally at home when I was growing up we would have roast turkey and ham for Christmas. Then for Easter it was roast pork and Easter eggs! We would also celebrate birthdays round the evening meal which was the normal meal but there would be soft drinks (soda) and the birthday cake for dessert. These were special days.

My grandparents used to cook the blackeyed peas and cornbread every year for New Years! There was ham for Christmas and Turkey for Thanksgiving too. For the most part, I have been traditional but where my b/f is from, they have the cabbage and corn beef for New Years. I like it better than the black eyed peas so that is what we have. I have also decided I might have lamb for Thanksgiving this year...I'm like you though..I don't eat turkey any other time throughout the year. Last year was the first time we didn't have Thanksgiving dinner at home. We went out to eat. There was only going to be three of us so we decided to break tradition.

im like you, turkey at christmas but i have never had traditional food on any other holiday

In our tradition every special event we usually serve the roasted pig (whole pig) we call it "lechon."

Typically the main course or meat is the right one for the occasion. The sides do and don't vary it depends on what we feel like making and how much money we have to buy ingredients. I think people save special things that take alot of time, pricey ingredients only a few times of year and of course there are certain things that are only available at those times of year as well.

Hi missybear, Nearly every holiday or religious day has some food associated with it. I like those kind of food which are tradition on those days. In India we usually have sweets in nearly every traditional food. So since Holi festival is round the corner ( this year it is on 20th of march), so right now the sweet of the season is Gunjia. Very sweet and delicious.

oh, yes. In our family, any occasion is not complete without the dishes made of sticky rice. My father is a farmer so we have a great supply of good quality sticky rice. My mom and brother love to cook and all the family members love to eat. Sticky rice is believed to bring goodluck. Biko is one of our favorites. It is good with either coffee or ginger ale.:)

We pretty much prepare the same things on special occasions. A traditional Filipino banquet table would have pancit (Filipino noodles)or spaghetti, barbeque, buko salad, lumpia (Filipino eggroll) and some native cakes on it. There is really nothing specific dish attached to an occasion except probably Christmas where you have the ham and the quezo de bola and Chinese New Year where you have the tikoy (sticky rice cake).

Maybe in a way, i am a traditional cook on Holidays. That's because during Christmas and new Year , i would always prepare spaghetti, chicken macaroni salad, buko salad and cook the bought ham even more to make it tastier. Or maybe because they are the favorite foods of the family members which they would like me to cook.

You made me laugh on the black eyed peas on this statement maybe that is my problem. LOL. My mom every now and then had us eat black eyed peas on new years. I hated that.I don't like black eyed peas.I didn't continue that tradition. We don't really celebrate St. Patrick's Day except for wearing green so no one pinches us.We changed our foods a lot on Christmas and Thanksgiving for quite a few years because we were getting bored with have turkey and or ham for both of them. Now we sometimes have barbecued food on one of them so we don't get so bored with it.

Hi Missybear, The only tradition I do is Thanksgiving and Christmas. Not so much on everything else. The only reason on Thanksgiving and Christmas is because we have the hole family over for those holidays or I would just have anything on those days too.