Christmas Foods Around the World: Stollen, Bûche de Noël and Japan’s Chicken Craze
Creatrip Team
3 months ago
As Christmas approaches, different countries enjoy distinct festive foods. In the UK and Germany, fruit-and-nut breads are traditional: British Christmas pudding (an aged, spiced dense cake using suet (suet: beef kidney fat)) has been eaten for centuries, and German stollen is a rum-soaked nut-and-dried-fruit loaf dusted with sugar, once tied to Advent (Advent: the four-week period before Christmas). France and French-speaking countries favor the chocolatey rolled cake called bûche de Noël (bûche de Noël: a Yule log-shaped sponge cake) that echoes the ancient Celtic Yule log custom. In Italy and Spain, leavened holiday breads like panettone and nougat (turrón) are common, and Spain also has the New Year grape-eating tradition. Japan, though not a Christian country, marks Christmas with strawberry shortcake (a sponge cake topped with fresh cream and strawberries) and surprisingly high sales of KFC fried chicken — a trend traced to a 1970s TV remark that popularized the idea of eating chicken for Christmas.
