What dish at a holiday dinner or other family gathering has the best memories for you, and why?

Christmas Eve was ALWAYS Clam Chowder at Mom's...I've made it at my own home, and it just isn't the same. (The chowder's better, in fact, but it just isn't the same without the family gathered round...)

My favourite holiday meal has to be the traditional Ukrainian vegetarian Christmas Eve dinners my grandmother used to host at her house. We'd start with the traditional wheat pudding dish - of boiled wheat - like a cereal to which was added honey and ground poppyseeds. IT's an acquired taste for those who are not Ukrainian. Then we'd eat borsch, a bean soup, a wild mushroom soup, gefilte fish - yes... a kosher Jewish delicacy because my grandma worked for a Jewish lady who taught her how to make it - and she loved it so much it became the fish course,

This would be followed by pickled herring, and then the favourite... verynyky with a mushroom gravy. There would be a variety of fillings - potato and cheese, cottage cheese, saurkraut and the best ever blue berry ones for dessert. My brothers and I would have contest to see how many verynyky we could eat.

After all this came desserts. Honey cake made with buckwheat honey, Christmas fruit cake and chrysytky - the lovely delicate and lifght fried pastry covered in icing sugar. As each grand child turned 16 we were allowed the shot of rye whiskey with the adults to toast the start of the meal.

I've tried to re create the meal for my family - and on occasion have done the entire 12 courses but because it's just the four of us, I've scaled back to about 4 or five.

My fondest memories are when we went out to the communities for Christmas. Getting there was the adventure! Although it was only an hour and half, it could be dangerous to go as where we went it was through avalanche country. I live up in the Yukon. We usually travelled the night before so that we wouldn't be late for dinner. Should you have to travel on Christmas day we would start soon after breakfast. The only time that we would travel is if it got really cold like about - 45 C

We would have appetizers such as vegetables until the meal was prepared. We had caribou, geese, duck,fish, moose and bison. With that we had wild brown rice and gravy. For desert we would have cranberry and apple pies.

Many fond memories shared here.

My story is very similar to help's.

We had good neighbors and one inparticular, she always made a roaster full of Cabbage Rolls for us.

To this day, although we went through a tough time, I often reflect back to when my family was closer. We always had a warm home and never went without. Most of the presents we received were either hand made or hand me downs.

Thank you all for the warm and fond memories...they made me feel fuzzy all over.

I hope everyone has a Verry Merry Christmas.

By the way...I gave everyone a thumbs up.

David will have a very difficult time picking a best answer.

Thank you David for the posting and Yahoo! Canada Answers Staff for the link.

This is the best question I have seen here for a long time.

This is a wonderful question, because it touches so many people where their love is.. their stomachs! While we remember so many things.. food truly is comfort isn't it? All these answers are so wonderful because they tell a tale of everyone's life, their adventures. It was truly wonderful reading them (and admittedly, getting some receipes and ideas!)

For me, Christmas is traditional French Canadian Food.. tourtiere and ragout made with pork hocks, served with mashed potatoes. A veritable pig (okay, pork) holiday, served on Christmas Eve (Reveillon). The "adults" often had pates, escargot, lobster, etc; but for me, the former two were such a special treat, because it was the only time of year my mom made them. I always hated the smell of the boiling hocks that morning or day before, but pouring the delicious gravy over potatoes, anticipating all the wonderful gifts to open from Le Pere Noel,who mysteriously always came while we were at midnight mass.... well, it's a great "gravy" memory I have to this day!

My mother would always have made special treats by way of cookies, pasteries, candies to enjoy after the Mass; everything you can imagine from mincemeat to handmade candy canes.. remarkable! Of course, always buche de Noel (Yule Log). Christmas morning was always a feast of fruit and leftover pasteries.. and on Christmas Day we usually had goose or duck.. but the best part really was Reveillon, with those foods that were so simple and delightful that there was nothing more wonderful in the world!

Now, with my mother gone, I'm fortunate enough to celebrate a German style Christmas with my In-laws, complete with rouladen and spatzle... but to me, Christmas is always a golden brown meat pie, mashed potatoes, and sponge cake baked and decorated as a log. It's like the magic of childhood, straight from the oven.

Gramma's perogies!

Around the 10th of December my mom, gramma and myself would spend an entire day making perogies. One year we made 20 dozen. All the rolling, cutting, filling and pinching of dough would leave us with aching and cramped fingers and hands. That one day was and will always be one of my favorite days. We would talk about everything under the sun and learn so much about each other. Gramma is now 88 years old and can no longer make perogies. Mom and I have tried to keep the tradition going, but it is not the same without gramma telling us that we are putting too much filing in the dough or not pinching it together tight enough.

Of course the day we got to finally eat those delicious little morsels was great, but never a great as the time shaed with the two best ladies I know and love.

The most memorable foods are the gravy plus potatoes ,steaming.

The turkey browned skin 's quite flavorfull.

Lateryears, the yams,plus sweet potatoes with the bitter brussel sprouts with turkey gravy satisfied the pallet.

Who didn't ever try homemade cranberries. warm sour cranberries.

Eggnog , mixed with the Mixmaster . The kind in the carton is tastey, yet never seems like eggnog, seems entirely a different recipe.

All the home cooked steaming dumplings, pies .

The Ginger bread house was always fun. Perhaps your question's provoking trying the gingerbread house this year, The stores offer the gingerbread house pre cut in shapes,

When i was quite young the candy cane seemed great. Time proved candy = weight. Given them up.

The Yule Log was always the center piece. The cake shaped in the 'log shape' representing the Yule Log.

thanks from....... provoking... memories.

Bonappetite

Cheers.

My favourite dish is The Best Sweet Potato Casserole.(copyright HPBooks 1988,Los Angeles, Cal. USA, A Taste of the South, Terry Thompson). I found the book at a flea market in Florida. Because we always loved sweet potatoes I was drawn to this recipe. It was described as a dish that someone always brought to a funeral lunch,as I remember. All the kids loved it so much they included a note in the thanks you note saying "Send more fudge..." I then decided to try it. My mother had always prepared a sweet potato dish every year at Christmas. After she passed away in 1973 it was one dish that had to be passed on, it was a tradition that could not be left out so it was passed on to me.

I made it to the recipe and to say it was sweet would be a great understatement,I guess it should have been a dessert. It was served as a main dish with the turkey, stuffing, mashed potato,green veggies and, of course cranberry sauce.

After all these years it is still going but my niece has taken over the responsibility and I must say she is doing a great job.

My favourite holiday dish is Melinzana!

It's very similar to a greek moussaka.

Made similarly to a vegetarian lasagna, warm eggplant, tomato paste, zucchini, spices and some type of delicious layers, I'm thinking it's some sort of flat pancake/ crepe type thing (to this day i have NO idea what they are, maybe i should find out this year!)

My grandparents are Slovenian & we all enjoy the colourful flavoures that the sweet eggplant and acidic tomato create together! YUM!

Such a nice dish that's not too heavy & pretty healthy for you!

I always think it's so neat to have a unique dish that my family enjoys at Christmas time. There are only a few famalies we know who share this tradition :)

yay! great question!

Because I came from a large family, Christmas with the turkey fully stuffed was the prize meal of the year. But it wasn't the turkey that was the crowning moment it was getting the wish bone. My mother used to put several small bones in small brown paper bags and then hide them around the house. So the person who found the wish bone not only hopefully got their wish, but also their program choice on TV for 3 Saturday or Friday Nights. I cherished the fact that I found it two years in a row while Star Trek was the hot show on TV.

My mothers side of the family is partly Ukrainian and Polish. The family peorogie recipe has been passed down from generation to generation. We've had several HUGE peorogie dinners that include family and friends and it is those that hold the best memories for me. My mom makes peorogies every fall, it is a 3 day affair to make them as she does three kinds, one kind per day. We make sourkraut, hamburger and cheese peorogies and her recipe for the dough is by far the best I've ever had.