What’s your Christmas tradition? For us, it is a tradition to start a birthday celebration by cutting a cake at midnight. I’m sure you and many people you know have the same tradition.
So as a child, that rule applied to Jesus’ birthday as well. Even though our Christmas cakes were ready by the 22nd or 23rd, we were not allowed to taste, touch, accidentally drop, or even look at it until we were home after midnight mass which was invariably around 2 am. We were told that it’s Jesus’ birthday and that it cannot be touched a minute earlier than that and can only be eaten once the blessed statuette of Jesus was placed in the Crib. We followed.
Christmas traditions at home are what we miss now because, although we found them to be strict rules to obey, they did give us something exciting to look forward to.
or as we call it ‘The Funny Family’
But, did you ever wonder how the tradition of the Christmas cake came about? Well, here is the origin of the legend.
Christmas cake is one of the many traditions that come from centuries-old English culture. What began as plum porridge – which was a mix of oats, eggs(to hold it firm), honey and/or sugar, animal fat, and lots of dried fruit and fresh fruits steamed together for up to 6 hours, to ensure that the sugar and the sweetness from the fresh and dried fruits distributed well with the mixture, has slowly and gradually turned into what we now enjoy and call Christmas cake or plum cake, albeit without the plum – do you know why? It’s because what we know as sultanas, raisins and currants were actually called plums in those days. I also came to find that people fasted and abstained on the day before Christmas and ate this plum porridge to line their stomachs after. We never did fast during this period, fasting for us and most people I know were for the period of Lent (a forty-day period of reflection and preparation before Easter) and maybe if you were praying the Novena or making special requests. In fact, I had no idea of this before I started writing this piece.
Moving forward, Brandy, candied fruit peels, and spices among other ingredients were added to this porridge mixture, oats were replaced with flour and butter. Poor families steamed, while wealthier families baked, depending on what they could afford. Eventually turning it into this delicious Christmas cake, that today if not included – Christmas is incomplete.
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