Edible Antics - Having Fun With Food

Eat for luck! - New Year's foods that bring good fortune

Just a few more days left of 2007, and you're likely wondering just how you will ring in the new year.  Sleep is always a good way, you tell yourself.  You're absolutely right, sleep is highly restorative.  By the end of the holidays we all need a little extra.  But hold on,  the holidays aren't over 'til the 2nd.  We've got nearly a week to go! So let's rally for the another round of partying!

My preparations so far have focused on reading other people's blogs about New Year's traditions.  I've been searching for foods that Wisconsinites favor on this holiday. Well, either my state is pretty disorganized regarding its New Year's traditions, or I haven't found the right website.  So, I asked around the office about my co-workers' New Year's traditions.  Their vague replies and shrugs tell me we're pretty disorganized.

I did find some helpful websites, particularly foodtimeline.org.  I think its info must be fairly good because I found the same info cut, pasted, and recycled on several other sites. Which site originated it, I haven't a clue.  Remember, on the web, information becomes more true with each additional website it appears on.  So rest assured, you can trust as undisputed fact that the following foods, if eaten on New Year's Day, will bring you good fortune for the whole year.

Here's what I learned on the web.  New Year's Day consumption of pig, whether it be pork or ham, brings luck because pigs move forward when they root around with their noses.  (Makes sense, right?)  What ever your do, don't eat fowl because they scratch backward in the dirt. But chicken's OK if you live in New Orleans.  I don't know why, maybe chickens scratch forward there.  If you live in the Northwest, you're lucky if you're eating salmon.  The rest of us are lucky to get creamed or pickled herring.

Cabbages and greens, such as spinach, kale, swiss chard, and collards bring prosperity because they resemble paper money.  But don't try to pass these at the store. The cabbage can be in the form of sauerkraut if you're German or from New England.  Eating round or ringed foods is highly important as these represent completion of the former year.  We've gone full circle, so to eat.  So go ahead, eat lots of doughnuts and bundt cakes.  Because black-eyed peas are round if you squint at them from a certain angle, they are believed to be exceptionally lucky New Year's fare. Enjoy the peas with cornbread. I guess corn is round if you squint at it from the other angle.

Needing all the luck I can get, and too impatient to wait until Tuesday, today I prepared the luckiest meal I could imagine.  Here's what I fixed: baked ham glazed with sweet, hot mustard; steamed rainbow swiss chard; spicy black-eyed pea salad, and corn bread.   Looks good, smells good, steeped in tradition, but well, it looks rather Southern, don't you think?  I mean we Wisconsinites are stepping out of our culinary habits, however, black-eyed peas, greens, and corn bread on a mid-winter Wisconsin table?  We have three feet of snow outside, more is falling, and my table looks like New Year's in Georgia.

I know just what to do; I'm adding sauerkraut, herring, and powdered-sugar doughnut holes.  Sauerkraut screams 'Wisconsin'.  I don't think I left out any lucky foods, but there's still something missing...What to do?

Wisconsinites play 'find-the-ham' with their Illinois cousins!

In my last post, I described a fun party game for kids.  The game offers directed amusement for a large group of children plus has the ulterior motive of inducing children to eat protein -- that nutritious substance essential for health but not always a child's first choice of foods.  Some of you reading the post, may have doubted that:

1. Anyone would want to play the game
2. The game was logistically possible to play
3. The children who find the protein would actually eat it

Well doubt no more!  Last Sunday afternoon we played find-the-protein with the Roberson clan of Illinois at their annual Christmas party. And the game was a smash-hit, party success!  14 children, between the ages of 1 and 11, divided themselves into teams and raced through the 3-story house searching for a hidden platter of ham.  The children loved the game so much they insisted on playing it three times!  (They would have played more, but the adults were getting hungry and wanted the ham back.)

The grade-schoolers won the first game when they found the ham in a bedroom closet.   It's unclear which team won the second, as there were cries of foul play when a child who had said he was not participating in the second round but watched the concealing of the ham, then leaked the location to teammates.   The third game was won by the kindergartners, who beamed with pride at their success!  Following the third game, the children were permitted to eat their prize, right on the spot --behind the chair in the study.  One child turned her back on the ham, announcing, "I don't like ham."  But the others dug in!  Handfuls were consumed, mouths were stuffed.  They uttered garbled, guttural noises that approximated the sounds of 'mmmm,  this is gooood!'

Holiday Party Game: Find the Protein!

My husband's family has the Christmas Eve tradition of hiding an almond in their rice pudding.  Whoever finds the almond is supposed to have good luck in the upcoming year.  I've heard of other families rummaging through their food foraging for a lone nut.  It's kind of like the game 'I Spy', except with food.  I like this game, but I suggest it be taken a step further, and I have highly practical reasons to support this suggestion.  Before I describe my advanced version of 'find the nut', I'll first convince you of why you should play it.

Let's re-frame 'find the almond' as 'find the protein'.   Almonds are an excellent source of protein.  Like fish, meat, cheese, and legumes, nuts are packed with life-supporting amino acids.  Cells in our bodies continually string amino acids together.  These strings then fold up into millions of unique shapes and thereby perform vital funtions. As a biologist who grocery shops, I can confirm that both the body and the grocer value protein more highly than sugar.  Consider how much more you pay for a pound of fish than a pound of sugar.

Sugars are carbohydrates.  Some are complex, as in fruits, veggies, and grains.  Others are simple, as in cupcakes, cookies, and soda pop.  The complex ones take the body longer to dismantle during digestion, but otherwise, a sugar is a sugar and our bodies convert it into energy.  When cells run low on sugar, they can convert protein into energy, but they can't build muscles and brains out of sugar.

Unfortunately, kids typically like eating sugar more than protein, and if offered both simultaneously, will likely choose the sugar.  Yes, you can tell yourself that they have higher energy needs than adults.  But do you really want them exercising all that high energy on Christmas morning, especially on the Christmas morning that you spent the wee hours of assembling the 401-piece pirate ship and the 'deluxe' my little pony castle?  If they eat only sugar Christmas morning, they'll be racing through the house, throwing random objects at each other, repeatedly uttering discordant, strange noises which they insist are songs, and asking you if you don't think these songs are brilliant compositions.

But say you have anticipated this scenario, and immediately after giving them the sugar, you send them outside or into the care of a bachelor uncle or aunt.  Good try, but regrettably, their sky-rocketed blood-sugar levels will come back to bite you.  Within a half an hour they'll be feeling the effects of the insulin now coursing through their blood telling their cells to absorb the blood's excess sugar.  The cells respond, and inevitably blood-sugar levels temporarily crash.  Now, adults experience this crash as feelings of lethargy, sleepiness, and sometimes illness.  Kids, on the other hand, just get cranky -- really cranky.  Your previously sugared-up darlings will run back to you crying that his or her sibling has maimed, cheated, or stolen something from him or her.  Hysterical wails of injustice will replace earlier peals of laughter.  Now, at this point, though it be only 10:30 am, many reasonable parents will start spiking the eggnog.

I have a pro-active remedy for this holiday headache. Here are three good reasons why you should fill your loved ones with a hearty, high-protein breakfast before you pass the sweets. 

1. A stomach full of protein has less room for sugar.  Therefore, the kids will be too full to eat as much candy and coffeecake as they had hoped.
2. Protein digestion takes more time than sugar digestion.  Thus, they'll feel full longer and you won't be back in the kitchen cooking so soon.
3. Protein digestion slows down sugar digestion.  Therefore, the sugar will enter the blood stream more gradually.  The sugar buzz won't be as high and the insulin crash won't be as low.  Your darlings will be calmer and more even-keeled.

Convinced you should fill your kids up on protein, now you wonder how.  You'll have to make eating protein amazingly fun!  Let a piece of protein be the grand prize to a 'can't-wait-to-play-again' game!  Now I'll describe the advanced version of 'find the almond in the pudding'.  I know that some kids who find the almond don't actually eat it.  But one almond is hardly a prize.  To motivate injestion, you'll need an impressively large quantity of protein --say, a ham.

Kids, cookies, and cows: Bringing it all together for the holidays!

One batch of cookies can take 1/2 lb. of butter.  Frosting it will take another 1/4 lb.  Calculations using the U.S. 2000 census indicate that if just 1/3 of American households make 3 batches of cookies this holiday season, then butter consumption will increase by approximately 79,110,075.75 lbs.  That's a lot of extra butter.  Where does it all come from?

For the answer, this investigative reporter went to the source.  The following is an excerpt from my interview with Anna May, Lulu, Sassy, Sprinkles, and Julia --Holstein cows on George Dittmar's dairy farm in central Wisconsin.  The composed demeanor of these heifers, tastefully chewing their cud while sporting hides of contrasting black and white patches, belied the critical importance of their labor.  I asked, "Does the extra baking during the holidays make this a busy time for you?" WIDairy.com

They looked at each other.  Then Anna May, the group's most forthright member, spoke first.  "Oh, well, our busiest time is in the fall."

"Yes," said Sassy, "that's when Mr. D. asks us for extra milk to send to the cheese and butter factories."

"They need it early to get the holiday food supplies ready in November," explained Julia.

"Oh, I see," I said, "which might be why Wisconsin butter production increased 6.9%, up to 33.9 million pounds this past October."  The cows' expressions went deadpan as each tried imagining a million pounds of butter.  "The extra work probably puts quite a strain on you," I offered.

"Oh, but it's worth it," replied Sprinkles sweetly, "to see the children's faces light up with joy when they're given a frosted sugar cookie.  It just puts a lump in my throat."

"That's her cud," quipped Lulu to Sassy.

Anna May shot them a stern look and said to me, "Sprinkles is right.  When you give a special holiday-shaped cookie to a child you give them more than a cookie, --you give a TOY!"

"Yes indeed," confirmed Julia, "you give a TOY!"  The irreverence ceased as the younger cows deferred to Julia.  I learned later that Julia enjoys a position of authority in the barn because she had been named after Julia Child, a cook who definitely understood the value of good cream and butter.  Julia said, "A child doesn't eat a cookie like an adult does."

"Oh, no," said Sprinkles shaking her head and pursing her lips in agreement.

"When adults bite into a cookie," continued Julia, "their pleasure appears with a smile and brightening eyes.  The adult will say, 'Mmmm! This is good!'  But a child's pleasure...well, a child's pleasure begins long before the first bite." holiday cookies

"You see," explained Anna May, "the magic of the holiday is in the cookie.  In a child's hand, a cookie comes alive.  Children hear the bell-shaped cookies ring when they shake them."

"They see a shooting star's fiery tale when they wave the star cookie above their heads," said Julia.

"A wreath slipped on to a finger becomes a spinning ring," added Sassy.

"Oh, that's a wonderful game!" laughed Sprinkles. "Children love to see how much of the ring they can nibble away before it falls from their finger."

"And they like to sing Frosty the Snowman when they pretend the snowmen cookies are skating over the table," said Anna May.

"They sing Santa Claus Is Coming To Town when they make the Santas walk," said Julia.

"Don't forget the gingerbread man," reminded Lulu. "Whole classrooms of kids run throughout schools looking for him."

"And then it's horrible!" wailed Sassy.  The other cows looked at her, stupefied.  "Haven't you seen how those little boys eat a gingerbread man?!" she defended.  "They put their teeth around his neck and rip his whole head off!"

The Host's Dilemma: Enjoy the Guests or the Food?

It may be dark and cold outside here in Wisconsin, but we're warm inside with family and friends.  At Thanksgiving, we celebrated the food, now in December, we celebrate each other.  We appreciate all the people who make our lives better by giving them cards and gifts.  And what better gift is there than ourselves?  I mean, really ourselves - our time, our attention, our presence.  We're so busy, busy all the time, and even busier now with our preparations for holiday fun.  Sometimes I've been so busy getting ready for the next festivity that I'm in the other room during the party.  How messed up is that?!  But I'm the host; I make the party happen.  

So let's analyze the host's dilemma.  As a good host, you want to hang out and have fun with your guests, but you also want to serve delicious food.  Solution #1: Celebrate only with people who love to cook, then you can all spend the holiday in the kitchen together.  This solution however, is impractical.  Kitchens are too small, and your circle of family and friends includes non-foodies.  If good fortune smiles on you, you will always celebrate with people who are too old and too young to cook for themselves.  You have to come through for them.  But you also want to have fun.  How can you be in two places at once?

Solution #2: Outsource.  Let someone else do the cooking.  Today's world is full of gastronomical options.  The gamut runs from haute-gourmet caterers sweeping into your home with trays of ambrosia, to your picking up packages of fast food at the grocery store.  Yes, the latter route will likely sacrifice quality.  The first Christmas Eve my husband and I spent together our families were elsewhere, and we decided to rebel against all the fuss and stress our mothers exhibited preparing the holiday dinner.  So that Christmas Eve, we ate hamburgers accompanied by favorite foods selected from the frozen-food aisle (this was pre-Trader Joes).  We warmed up Chung King egg rolls and Stouffer's creamed spinach.  Then for a lark, we tried Zippy-the-Pinhead's favorite dessert: Hostess Ding Dongs dipped in taco sauce.  We concluded that taco sauce tastes better on Oreo cookies.  None-the-less, this holiday menu never became a tradition.

But these days, convenience without caterers can taste good --very good, in fact.  I heartedly admit that the high-quality foods from specialty shops that my mother served were superior to what she or I could make.