Food from the heart makes Christmas special
Traditions often start in simple ways.
For Randy Edison, a Christmas Eve food ritual he shares with his grandchildren started with a simple Google search.
The Grand Falls-Windsor resident was poking around the internet looking for a unique Christmas story idea when he was a working journalist in central Newfoundland.
At the same time, he was looking for something he could do with his grandsons that could turn into an annual tradition.
That’s when he came across the recipe for a trench cake.
“This one sort of fell into my lap,” said Edison.
The trench cake goes back to the First World War when families in Great Britain would bake a simple fruit cake and send it to the soldiers on the front line, meant to give them a little taste of home.
“I thought, why not do something like that?” said Edison.
The ingredients are simple. Fancy baking supplies were hard to come by during the war and the recipe reflects that.
Vinegar is used instead of eggs to help make the yeast rise, while the rest of the recipe calls for smaller doses of currants, brown sugar, flour, milk, nutmeg, and ginger.
“The first one was a good exercise in humility,” said Edison.
Despite that, his grandchildren (whose mother runs a cake business) have shown an aptitude for baking in subsequent years. They’ve made the cake for the last five years and have settled into a bit of a groove.
“The boys are really into it, “said Edison.
But the cake is not only an activity for Edison and his grandchildren to do on Christmas Eve. It holds a deeper meaning.
With its origins from the First World War, Edison used it as a way to connect his grandsons with their relatives. Edison’s great-uncle, Fred Wells, was a private with the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. From Springdale, he joined the war effort in 1917 at the age of 18.
He died Oct. 14, 1918. The boys have two greatgrandfathers who fought in the Second World War.
“I thought it was a great way to do something with a bit of a tradition and honour the memory of some of the soldiers,” said Edison.
BRIDGING THE DISTANCE
Traditional meals can also bridge the divide between an adopted home and a real one.
Growing up in Nigeria, Christmas Eve was always a big day for Sam Ibrahim. He and his father always headed to the market to buy food for the next few days.
Normally, the search would include a goat or a cow to provide the meat for the festivities, it all depended on what you could afford.
The night of Dec. 24 was about preparing everything for the following day’s feast. Everyone got a little sampling of pepper soup, a pastry called chin chin and some rice before heading to church.
“You might get one or two pieces each, just to get a taste of tomorrow,” said Ibrahim. “Christmas Day is huge, but the night before Christmas, everybody is cooking and the whole place would be smelling beautiful and delicious.
“Christmas Eve is an appetizer, so you know tomorrow is going to be big, it's going to be huge.”
He’s been in Newfoundland for the last several years, having first lived in Spaniard’s Bay, where his wife is from.
As such, his traditional Nigerian fare has been replaced with the traditions of his new home. Pepper soup became turkey dinner, and chin chin turned into Newfoundland pastry.
Now living in St. John’s, Ibrahim has longed for that particular taste of home during the Christmas season.
“I miss home. I miss having my delicacy on Christmas,” he said. “It reminds me of home.”
This year, Ibrahim plans to change that. He's going to put together a dish that includes some pounded yam and a soup made from goat and lamb meat, as well as fish.
“I’m going to have a feel of home this year,” said Ibrahim. “That’s what I want to do for Christmas.”