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Plus what do carp and goats have in common at Christmas?
I can just hear my Aunt's voice in my head now, "and remember Jesus is the reason for the season." I think she would be very happy to know that this message isn't lost in the traditional Polish home with Babcia/ Grandma in charge. There are many articles on how to survive a Polish Christmas dinner but I've yet to find one that juxtaposed Polish and Jamaican Christmas dinner and traditions. There are some similarities between our celebrations, but way more differences. Our traditions are two worlds apart, as far away as the 8,856 kilometers that separate the two countries.
This one is a mix/masz (Polish for you have). I will hop from the Caribbean to Central Europe and back; to give you a glimpse inside my first experience at Wigilia.
Wigilia is one of the most important days of the year in Poland and is celebrated on 24th December. This Christmas Eve dinner excludes meat and alcohol, as abstinence is required and should comprise twelve distinct dishes in memory of the twelve Apostles.
But let's start with what I know best the Jamaican Christmas experience.
Santa Claus Do You Ever Come to the Ghetto? listen here I grew up in the poor and crime-torn inner cities of Kingston. I don't believe Santa wanted to come to the ghetto. We made up songs, that his sleigh crash-landed in a mango tree, and other classics.
My Uncle told me it wouldn't be safe for Santa to break and enter, eat our cookies and drink our milk without having to leave a significant contribution in cash to the ongoing construction of the much-needed additional room.
My cousins and I didn't 100% believe in Santa. We were logical and discussed the fact that the reindeer couldn't fly, and if they could, Jamaica would be too hot for them.
There was no snow, no chimney for Santa to climb down and so Santa was staying in the United States,
My Mom was my Santa or Mrs. Clause. She would pull out all the stops at Christmas. She did massive redecoration, new curtains and bed sheets, mats, rugs, and decorative doilies on the furniture.
She cooked up a storm, in outdoor the kitchen. In pots as big as me nestled in wood fires, was simmering soups, curried goat, oxtail, rice and peas, and fried fish. (More about the goat later).
I honestly don't remember helping with the cooking. I was too busy playing with my cousins. Schools were closed and there were so many of us running and screaming for someone to save our lives from the terrifying junkanoo band!
Ackee Christmas Tree
Before we could afford to buy a plastic Christmas tree, we used to hang the lights on practically any tree we had in our yard.
At this time of year, no tree was
safe, once we had lights, an extension cord, and a ladder we would decorate breadfruit, ackee, lime, and palm trees.
We all have Christmas pictures standing in front of our well-decorated Ackee Christmas Tree!
I bought my first real Christmas Tree/ Choinka when I moved to Poland. And also discovered that it's okay to have a tiny tree with a few lights.
A grandioso tree with tons of ornaments isn't a status symbol here, as it sometimes felt back home.
HAVE YOU SEEN CHRISTMAS?
December was much louder than usual, with everyone shouting across their fences at each other to complement their neighbor's freshly painted colorful houses. "Ah yuh see Christmas"!
This can be loosely translated as "I assume you ALSO received a Western Union money transfer from your family abroad."
I am not sure why we chose to paint our homes at Christmas, quadrupling paint sales in December alone.
TO MARKET, TO MARKET...
The ladies were super busy buying or selling something. Walking fast, too busy to stop and gossip, or else she'll be late going downtown to Coronation Market for vegetables, fruits, spices, and holiday deals.
Christmas wouldn't be complete without a trip to the Coronation Market, the biggest market in the English-speaking Caribbean!
If you ever visit the market during the busy Christmas season, be forewarned, while most of the vendors are friendly, there will always be that one old lady who just had enough of you're questions about prices and ripeness and fitness of her produce. Watch out, she is feisty! Like me, she's a bomb with a short fuse and a tongue as sharp as a razor. Your indecisiveness annoys her. My advice is to quickly make your assessment and your decision to buy or not or else you will be met by the ear-splitting dismissive shrill!
"Hey Lady, stop feel up, feel up mi Tomatis if yuh nah go buy dem". (Stop touching my tomatoes if you don't plan on buying them."
Now with a walk down memory lane complete, LET'S EAT... and learn about the 12 dishes of Polish Christmas Dinner.
Back home, there was a prayer and then the food is served buffet-style, with no particular order as it's done in Poland. We piled our food on our plates and dug in.
At Wigilia, before sitting down for dinner a wafer is passed around a large called Opłatek. Each person breaks a piece of Opłatek and offers it as Christmas wishes to each guest. It symbolizes the breaking of the bread at the Last Supper.
Dinner begins with soup(s), followed by herring in different forms. Fish provides the main dish of the Christmas Eve feast across Poland. Accompaniments consist of cabbage, Sauerkraut with mushrooms, and sometimes apple salad. The bread served at the meal is often Challah, then there is an array of desserts, including obligatory poppy seed pie and dried fruit compote, followed by cake. "Pace yourself Stacy" Shampy my in-law warned. "We have a lot to go through so I suggest you go slowly." Very soon I understood what he meant. Eleven other dishes were coming and I already slurped down a bowl of delicious forest mushroom soup. WHERE'S MY GOAT?
After the soup comes carp. Carp is a fish that is traditionally farmed in Poland for at least 700 years.
Carp is a Christmas must-have. There are many types of interesting recipes, BUT the one I had was a jiggly gelatinous mold of carp in jelly.
I tried to wrap my mind around Who came up with this idea to make JELLO fish?
There are two styles of carp in Jelly, Polish and Jewish style.
As one old lady in the supermarket paused to give me a carp in jelly lesson, "The Jewish style carp is a bit sweeter, it's much less fish and more potatoes." Hence, the Polish one is her favorite.
"But to each, their own" she added as she sauntered off with her store-bought carp in jelly.
Which is a new ready-made item in the freezer section. At dinner, I scraped at the jelly to access the fish beneath, but it was too late I had already resigned from the idea of eating carp in jelly. Carp in batter, coated with breadcrumbs, and fried is my choice but to each their own.
Now you "mayyyy" be wondering what the goat and carp have in common?
Well, back home, before any large family gathering and celebration including weddings and funerals; there was always a goat tied to a tree in the backyard.
My cousins and I used to give our goats names, petted them, and fed them. Then the goats would go missing. I assumed they ran away.
I remember the moment I made the connection between the missing goats and the Manish water soup I was drinking the night before a family gathering. I was twelve years old. The piping hot soup was typically served in a paper cup and was filled with meat, veggies, and juicy bones. I sucked and nibbled at the bone but realized the texture was quite hard.
Photo credit: Reddit user Jamaican Gatekeeping.
I pulled it out of my mouth to analyze how to chew it up properly, perhaps find its weak spot.
I closely inspected the tasty morsel under the dimmed lights in the back yard, under the ackee tree where my goat Miss Bessie was previously tied. I looked at it and as my eyes widened in horror I discovered it was a tooth! A goat tooth! The thing I was chewing was previously used to chew! I've never had Manish water soup since.
BUT WHY IS THERE A FISH IN THE BATHTUB?
Before they are meals, the goat and the carp share a similar back story. They are named, petted, and fed by the kids. The fish is to be served fresh. And just like the goat, the carp is kept at home, this time in the bathtub.
When Christmas Eve arrives, it’s time for the family to serve up their temporary pet as the main course.
Atlasobscurca.com writes; Keeping one’s fish in the bathtub for several days likely began as a pre-refrigeration storage technique. Others suggest that since the carp is a bottom feeder, a few days in clean water would help to clean the fish digestive tract. The rest of the dishes were more "tame", (I hope you get my sense of humor). Delicious homemade dumplings soups and desserts. With so much food to go through the dinner lasted around three hours. Check out the full list of 12 dishes here.
LET'S DRINK As a child, after dinner, we were exiled to the backyard where my cousins and I pretended to play fight Karate. We got dirty and bloodied, one of us always reported back with a burst lip, remedied only by a slice of Christmas cake, glazed with white and a glass of Sorrel drink (sometimes laced with white rum).
Uwaga!/ Warning! Sorrel is not to be confused with the leafy green Sorrel in Poland, used to make Sorrel soup. I was delighted to learn there was sorrel in Poland! I was looking forward to adding lots of ice and white rum and sipping it while eating my cake.
You can imagine the shock when discovered this was the sorrel, and the byproduct was Sorrel Soup/Zupa Szczawiowa (say that five times fast). What will my Christmas be without a sweet-spicy red Sorrel Christmas drink!
Thanks, @lukifu_warsaw for constantly telling me it's not sorrel, it's a hibiscus plant called Roselle, or the Hibiscus sabdariffa. Sorrel is a common name, but it is also sometimes referred to as Jamaican sorrel, Caribbean sorrel, or red sorrel.
Last week I boiled a big pot of Jamaican sorrel here in Poland. The hero of this moment is @anitaszarlik, who earlier this year in her bid to escape the bitter Polish winter; went to Mexico. And there, in a market in Mexico City, she bought a bag of dried Jamaican Sorrel, which I've kept in storage for this exact moment!
Want to make Jamaican sorrel in Poland? Check out my Pinterest for the recipe.
Kompot is served as the traditional non-alcoholic Christmas Drink, made from dried fruit such as plums and apples.
MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE
Back on the rock, there are so many Christmas parties you can't possibly attend all of them. Corporate parties, clubbing, house parties, and the best are the street dances in the square of the inner cities. These are usually organized by the owner of the popular local bar whose turn it was in the round-robin and usually held on Christmas Eve or Boxing Day.
Photo: DancehallAfrofunk.com
If you saw Christmas you would come to the dance dressed in the fashion trends, they were practicing the latest moves, eager to show the crowd how well they mastered the dutty whine and hot wuk. Disclaimer. Dancehall is not of the faint of heart or weak of muscle.
The men sported their pampered Clarks, which they proudly showed off by standing like Caption Morgan; foot atop a crate of Guinness. Most Jamaicans, understand the significance of these shoes to Dancehall culture. These very expensive shoes are on the wish list of most young men.
In Poland, the tradition is to give up something, usually meat and alcohol; not to have excess. In Jamaica is quite the opposite. Speaking of noise... After Christmas dinner, the loudest came from my Uncles. They would set up the sound system, drink, play dominoes, and shout at each other all sorts of insults as they pounded their dominoes much too violently on the poor rickety table "Six love under yuh skin bwoy"! This meant they won the game six times. At the end of Wigilia, my hosts sang Christmas carols, since I do not speak the language fluently, nor sing well I hummed along. Currently, I only know a few lines of "Ding Dong Pada Śneig" thanks to my son's rehearsal for his kindergarten Christmas recital.
HOLY CARP!
Carp scales are considered good luck charms. For an extra dose of fortune, they keep the carp scales in their wallets until the following Christmas Eve.
I don't carp, but I suspect if you want to wish a Jamaican extra dose of fortune, give them cold hard cash or the winning lottery and cash pot numbers.
Photo from praguehere.com
I'll end with a delightful discovery, a rendition of "A White Christmas" by Bob Marley & The Wailers.
Merry Christmas/ Wesłoych Świąt!
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