Recipes of Home #6 - TRADITION

 

TRADITION

 

Home is where you feel at home and are treated well. – Dalai Lama

 

Sandra Holloway shares, “This is a Danish dish served on Christmas Eve in our house.”

 

Rice Cooked in Milk

1 cup   rice

3 cups  scalded milk (just boiling)

1 tsp    salt (or less)

 Wash rice thoroughly in cold water.

Place rice, salt, and milk in top of double boiler and cook over boing water about 40 mins. (3.5 hrs. for me), or until rice is soft and all milk absorbed. This method of cooking rice is especially desirable for small children.

This makes 5 servings.

Pg. 169 The Modern Family Cookbook, Meta Given, 1961

 

Sandra continues, “In our house we sprinkle the top of the rice with a mix of half and half cinnamon and sugar. We hide an almond in one dish. Whoever finds the almond gets a small gift.”

 

I know this tradition. The families of my first parish in New Denmark, NB practiced this tradition. My introduction was at a Christmas Eve dinner where 20 family members (Bedstemor  and bedstefar grandparents, their three adult kids, and their kids), plus my husband, brother and his two kids, gathered for Danish Christmas dinner. At the end of dinner, and just before dancing around the Christmas tree and singing carols, out of the kitchen came rice pudding for everyone. Us not knowing the tradition of the almond in the pudding were somewhat aghast when the young people took their spoons and quickly sliced it through their pudding dishes. They had no interest in eating the pudding, only in finding the almond and receiving the prize.

The adults took their time and enjoyed the pudding which was accompanied by a homemade raspberry sauce.

 

All the excitement was completed in time to get the pastor off to open the church doors for 11pm service. The family and most of the other families in the community arrived for church to mark the highlight of the night, marking Jesus' birth. Then it was back to their homes for gift opening, some staying up through to early breakfast.

 

Tradition was home. It did not matter if you were living in the Danish community or had moved away --- rice pudding, dancing around the Christmas tree, Danish decorations like the one in the accompanying picture--- traditions reminded you of home and made you feel at home.

 

Consider the traditions that you practice. How does the practice of the tradition make you feel? Do you feel at home?

 

PRAYER- Stir up in us disciplines that create a feeling of home and traditions that bind us to one another. Grant us spirits that embrace a wide variety of traditions that draw us closer to you. Amen.