Cooking Up Christmas Traditions - Food Memory Project

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Cooking up Christmas traditions is both a family bonding event and a celebration! Learn how tamales, polzole & ponche bring a family closer.

Food is entwined in many of our most treasured holiday traditions. We gather with friends and family to enjoy special meals, and prepare recipes that bring back memories of holidays past.

Christmas tree with red and gold ornaments

Veronica from Chattanooga, Tennessee, looks forward to sharing several favorite dishes with her Mexican family each Christmas:

“Growing up in a Mexican household, Christmas Eve is celebrated with a feast of tamales, pozole, and ponche. Unwrapping tamales on Christmas is equally as (or more) exciting than unwrapping presents. The process of making tamales is a long labor of love that my mom usually starts the night before. On Christmas Eve morning, she starts the day by making the masa (dough). After the masa is finished, we begin a family assembly line to spread the masa, spoon the mole sauce and meat prepped the night before onto the masa, and wrap the tamales. It’s a time of family bonding with plenty of laughter and Christmas music in the air. My Dad’s big job is to assemble the tamales in a large steamer pot. They have to be arranged in a specific way, so that the steam can cook them evenly.”

Tamales, pozole, and punch — Tamales and pozole

“The second component to our Christmas Eve meal is pozole, which is a hominy stew that is made with chicken or pork, a chili sauce (similar to enchilada sauce), and a blend of Mexican spices. We pair the meal with a sweet, warm mug of Ponche Navideño (Christmas Punch). Ponche is a cider-like drink made with guava, sugar cane, apples, cinnamon, start anise, prunes, and piloncillo (a type of packed brown sugar).

I look forward to this special meal every year and the memories that are shared from the process of making the meal until we gather to enjoy it.”

Fruit and spices in pot — Ponche Navideño in progress

Mmmm, every bit of this Christmas Eve feast sounds so cozy and delicious! What a great opportunity for family bonding and celebration, and the results are certainly worth the wait. Thanks for sharing your memory with us, Veronica!