Christmas Eve with Mom 12.8.23

In this podcast, Tessa and her mom Christine discuss their Polish Christmas Eve traditions. They talk about the specific foods they eat, such as beet soup, fish, pierogi, and a special wheat dish called kuchat. They also mention the tradition of sharing Christmas wafers and exchanging well-wishes. They talk about the importance of toasting and enjoying each other's company. They end the evening with singing hymns, placing the baby Jesus in the nativity scene, and opening Christmas presents. They also mention attending carols at church and midnight mass. Overall, they share their love for the Polish culture and the joy they find in celebrating Christmas Eve. Hello, welcome to Sienna Podcast. My name is Tessa, and I'm here with my mom, Christine, and we're going to talk about Christmas Eve and our Polish tradition. Would you like to start off, mom? Yes, you might wonder why I follow Polish traditions for Christmas Eve when I'm mostly Swedish. I have to say, my husband's half Polish, and I fell in love with the Polish culture, particularly their handling of religious feasts. They're taken very seriously and very joyfully. The feast planning for Christmas Eve is always done with great planning, because there are very specific things that have to be there. For example, there's no meat eaten. Some of the other European countries don't even have dairy on Christmas Eve, and the tradition is to fast all day until close to sunset. One of the first things that happens on Christmas Eve is a sharing of the Christmas wafer. The Christmas wafer is called a płatek, for singular, or a płatki, for plural, and each person gets a wafer, and they pair-wise exchange pieces of their wafer, and with each exchange, each also exchanges very specific well-wishing to the other person. It really is a beautiful tradition, and it helps us to really think about each person in a particular way, and maybe what they're hoping for, or maybe what they're struggling with. I think of the wish, too, for each person as a little prayer for them, too. Would you say so, Mom? Absolutely. So, what's next? What happens after the płatki? Well, there can be a toast. That's very important. I don't know exactly how that's done, because we use sparkling wine, but I'm suspecting they might use vodka in the old country, so to speak. And then we have a very specific meal. The meal consists of beet soup, called barszcz in Polish, not borscht, and you might have these nice little mushroom dumplings called kuszki, which means ears, because they look like ears. Doesn't that sound gross to be eating these? They're delicious. Yes, they are. And we use sour cream. I've found out that not everybody does, but we do use sour cream in our family, too. To accentuate this experience. And then comes pretty much the main course, and you guessed it, it's going to have fish. So, it can be any fish, but usually we'll have a couple of kinds, like herring, and pickled herring, and some kind of baked fish would be common. Although they make fish jellies and stuff like that, too. Oh, yeah. Sometimes variations on a theme there. And there might be even shrimp. We don't usually do that for Christmas Eve, but that would be allowed. Oh, that is interesting. And then we also have a very special kind of pierogi that we make. Sauerkraut with mushrooms, and some people like to include potato pierogi also, but not meat pierogi. That's right. You can't eat meat until midnight. That's right. So, what else? I think that there's also a beet salad. Is there a name for a beet salad? Actually, I found out from my mother-in-law that that is just a regular, she's Russian, and that's the kind of salad that they would make in Russia, and it's not specifically tied to Christmas. But we always have it on Christmas, because that's her specialty, and that's what she would bring. That's true. I also think that Poles often have beets in their recipes as well, so I think that is appropriate. And of course, the beet soup. Yes. But another interesting thing that in our family we have observed is we have this dish called kuchat. Kuchat literally means wheat, and it's a special type of wheat, and it's soft. It's cooked till soft. The wheat berries are cooked till soft, and they're mixed with honey and liquor. It's delicious, but not to everybody's taste. Not everybody's wild about it. And it can be served with dried plums that are heated up with water, so they're stewed dried plums, and that is really, to me, a very delicious thing. Now, that is actually common in Lithuania. In fact, they call Christmas Eve kuchat, because they use kuchat, and they don't eat any fish or dairy or anything. I guess they just eat kuchat. Without that brandy in it. Makes them very happy, I'm sure. And no sour cream for them. But anyway, so. And actually, those are the essentials. Well, I think the kids always love those black olives, and they can put them on their fingers when they're starving, as everybody's toasting and drinking before dinner. Wait, did I say that? Well, maybe I'll edit that out later. No, I'm kidding. But there's olives, and do we have herring also? We have herring. Herring and baked fish. Stuffed baked fish. I usually put crab meat or small shrimp in it. Then, of course, we have some bread. I guess, traditionally, it would be rye bread, probably. Probably, but we typically use some kind of, you know, baguette or a tannin style bread. Yes. Okay, so I think that's the main meal. And then we have cake. Yeah, and then we have torte. A special kind of cake that my mother-in-law used to make. And don't forget the kawachki. Yes. So, if anybody's familiar with kawachki, you might think about the circle. They're like a circle with a jam in the middle. But these, how would you describe them? We fold them like a little diaper. It's like a square that you fold over the corners. What is it? The real traditional one is the circle. That's why it's called koal. Okay. But you very often, like if you buy it in the store, you'll often see it folded. Yeah, I also thought that was maybe kind of like representative of a baby bundled up. I don't know. Yes, I think so. Absolutely. So, and then you have all the different flavors. You have almond or apricot filling. Oh, we got poppy seed. Poppy seed or cherry. I think I really liked the cherry when I was a kid. And then, of course, my favorite, coffee. Or tea. With cream. Yes. Cream and sugar for this day. And then what happens after all of that? Well, we like to sing some hymns and put the baby Jesus in the crush. Because the baby Jesus isn't in the crush yet. But we skip ahead a few. We put the baby Jesus in the crush around 9 o'clock. A little early. Yeah, so that's really sweet. Over the years, I think we developed a little ceremony with some of the little kids. So they could be a part of it. And they'd carry the candle. And I'm the one who brings up the baby Jesus without breaking him. Yes. And, you know, I think it makes them feel special to be a part of that. It's a happy memory. And then we're on to opening up all the Christmas presents. We open the gifts on Christmas Eve, not on Christmas Day. So that's a great thing. And it's insane. And it's awesome. That's my first experience with a revision set. Yeah. So after people calm down and clean things up a little bit, then it's around 10.30 and it's off to carols at church and midnight mass. So I think that kind of sums up our Christmas Eve talk. Do you have anything else to add? I only say that the idea of coffee in the evening is not a bad one if you're trying to stay up. Sometimes it's a real midnight one. We go at midnight and that thing is really stale. Yeah. There have been times where we drove to the city for carols and midnight mass and we wouldn't get home until 3 o'clock in the morning. Yeah. I think I'm too old for that now. But anyway, thank you so much for joining us today and tuning in. It was a pleasure and we hope you enjoyed this podcast. Thank you.