Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories December 5th, 2015 - Holiday Recipes

My dad's mother was born in England and at Christmas time, there were always special foods we did not normally see throughout the year. One of the dishes was suet pudding. I might have been able to try it if I had not watched my mother make it. I could not ever get it past my chin, and I could not understand why you would eat something with FAT in it and think it was so yummy. The next treat, bread pudding, was another matter entirely. It was made and served with the best thick lemon sauce to put over it. It was very mysterious, as it was always kept wrapped in wax paper in a tin and kept in the refrigerator. This was the treat my dad always coveted, hid, and snuck out to the kitchen for in the middle of the night. The other two foods that seemed to be very popular were the mince meat pie and the fruitcake. You never had to worry about me taking anyone's share of those! I did not find out until much later that every Christmas was a test of sorts for my mother, who was not from England, but she worked hard to prepare the special menu items perfectly so that they would pass my grandmother's inspection. Maybe that was why she didn't really care for the traditional foods???