Indulging in some holiday cheer

TASTY FEAST

Christmas is just a few days away and people are already in the mood for some good food, wine and partying.

While Bangaloreans celebrate the festival in their own style, people from different regions and communities celebrate it with different goodies for the season.

Not everyone is able to celebrate the festival in all its authenticity. But many
people try to do so by preparing traditional dishes.

Mary James from Lakshmipuram, who came to the City more than 40 years ago, says a traditional Christmas consists of vattaiappam, vellaippam and curries in beef, chicken and egg, and other snacks. “Different snacks like achappam, uniappam and diamond cuts are also made during this season,” she lists out. Apart from this, a lot
of vegetable dishes, pulav and biryani are also made according to a person’s preference, she adds.

Megan Fernandes, a young professional who is Mangalorean by birth, has been
living in the City with her family for 22 years. “The food that we typically make for Christmas might not stick to the traditional norms. But it is what the family loves. We include a lot of meat as part of our celebrations.

Different gravies and roasts in pork, beef and chicken are always a part of the festivity,” she says. Megan adds that it’s a major celebration for people with a sweet tooth as the family makes sweets like nevrio, rice ladoos, tukdi, kokkisan and kidiyo. “Christmas involves cake and wine at home, and my mother makes the traditional plum cake with raisins and rum,” she adds.

The Christmas celebration of the Anglo-Indian community is quite British in style. Kevin Christopher says that the typical Christmas food for them consists of different items like kalkals, diamond cuts and coconut puffs.

“Most of us make wine and share the extra wine among family and friends. This has been a family tradition,” he notes. On Christmas day, the family has a traditional English breakfast which consists of baked beans, salted peas, bacon and ham; and bread and fried eggs, elaborates Kevin.

A Tamilian by ethnicity, John Samuel, who stays in Cox Town, feels that the
festive season is more about spending time together and being there for each other.
“There is nothing predominantly traditional that we make apart from chicken biryani.

The day starts with people going to church and heading back home to indulge in kebabs and different sweets like rice kheer and dry sweets like pumpkin halwa. Sometimes, we bake the traditional cake at home while at times, we buy it from outside,” wraps up John.