Gomushin Girl lives and works in Korea, but is chronicling her trip back home to the Pacific Northwest US as FatManSeoul’s first food diarist.

Kentucky Fried Chicken has done such a good job convincing the Japanese that Americans dine on KFC for the birth of Christ that lines for the chicken buckets stretch around the block on the 25th.  They also like to eat fancy layer cakes, a piece of culture that’s spread to Korea.  Like most Americans, I scratch my head at these ideas, and as an anth person I’m truly intrigued by the emergence of these new indigenous traditions so far removed from the supposed inspiration.  Mostly though, I’m just happy to have been able to join my family for our “traditional” repast, as dictated by our family history, kitchen, and exhaustion levels.

turkey

Thanksgiving is always turkey, and New Year’s Day means roast beef, but Christmas is flexible in our household. Sometimes we tip towards our maternal heritage and have a ham, but this year I missed Turkey day and my parents made it up to me by stuffing a bird. This is no mean feat, and preparing and cooking the turkey takes pretty much all day. The stuffing (or dressing) is another point of debate for lots of Americans, since there are so many versions. My family’s version is one dictated by our own personal tastes, and one particularly horrific Thanksgiving where my mother refused to go to the store again just to replace wilted celery. She tore through the kitchen for a suitable substitute, which is how Gomushin Girl’s clan first started eating our own Bok Choy Stuffing (recipe follows).

Our dinner was, other than the turkey and stuffing, fairly modest this year. We roasted a few yams and some garlic green beans and called it a day. Gravy made with the drippings from the turkey was the only sauce. I can’t complain, seeing as jetlag got me and I didn’t get up until almost six in the evening anyway.

xmas dinner

Normally we have homemade pumpkin or pecan pie, but this year I finished off the meal with a small cream cake I bought during my layover in Japan, and a glass of tawny port.

port and japanese creme cake

Boxing Day (St. Stephens, otherwise known as the day Good St. Wencelas looked out) is the day following Christmas. That means a bank holiday in the British world, but leftovers to a great many more. In our family there’s only one thing eaten all day long: Openfaced Turkey Sandwiches. It’s a simple dish – toast a piece of bread, and pile high with leftover turkey, stuffing, and vegetables, then pour gravy over the whole mess and microwave until hot.