Christmas is a time for celebrating with family and friends, spreading joy, and eating a lot of food. While people may not be willing to admit it, the food is probably the most appealing part—well, to me it is. Christmas food is as richly ingrained in Christmas tradition. Why else would we choose to eat gingerbread at this time of year instead of cookies that are actually good? Speaking of which, some Christmas foods are so unique that some only remember that they exist once Christmas rolls around, but what about the Christmas foods that no one even knows about, much less eats? Are they lost because they are beyond unique and have crossed into the realm of the bizarre, or maybe they have just been lost to time over the decades? Either way, I’ve embarked on a journey to rediscover some strange Christmas foods that I probably won’t be eating again.
Sugar Plums:
Sugar plums aren’t really that obscure within the public consciousness because of the iconic “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy,” which you will inevitably hear in advertisements around Christmas season. Even so, if I asked you what a sugar plum actually is, would you get the answer right? If you’re thinking, “Well, they’re just plums with sugar; it’s in the name,” then you’d be wrong. “Sugar plum” refers to two types of confectionery, one of which doesn’t contain plums at all and one that does contain plums. The no-plum version dates back to the 17th century and consists of a fruit or nut covered in a candy coating, similar to M&M’s if you replaced the chocolate. The other version is a modern take on sugar plums that uses dried plums or prunes, in addition to nuts, spices, and other dried fruit. The sugar plums I made were the ones with plum.
Following a recipe from Food Network personality Alton Brown, I learned that sugar plums are easy to make. I blended prunes, dried figs, dried apricots, and slivered almonds together until the mixture looked like a colorful pile of coarse sand. For the spice component, I mixed toasted caraway seeds, cardamom, fennel, powdered sugar, and a pinch of salt. I combined the dried fruit and spice mixtures using honey, and rolled the resulting mixture into balls. After I rolled the balls in sugar, I had myself some sugar plums.
While I would not say they are a must-try, I found the sugar plums to be quite palatable. As you sink your teeth into them, you will first notice that unlike dried fruit, sugar plums don’t have a skin, and like anything covered in sugar, they’re super sweet. As you chew, you experience the crunch of the almonds and the concentrated flavor of dried fruit that reminds you of the fiber you’re getting for later. A few seconds in, the spices come out of nowhere, cardamom being the most prominent, and you are left with a warming sensation in your mouth that is reminiscent of the feeling of spending the holidays surrounded by loved ones. I would say that sugar plums are a fun spin on boring old dried fruit if it were not for the snacking I did as I made the sugar plums that led to my discovery of dried figs. If you like dried fruit in any capacity, but have not tried dried figs, then you should seek out dried figs to experience their magic deliciousness. Sugar plums are still alright though, and since I made 50, I have enough to last me through the winter.
Cheese Tree:
I didn’t think my journey through the world of peculiar Christmas food would be complete without some Christmas-tree shaped monstrosity, but the 1974 shrimp tree recipe I found in my research was a bit too much for me, so I made a cheese tree instead. Soft cheese shaped into a ball and eaten with crackers is a staple Christmas food in some parts of the US, so why not make it more festive by turning the cheese ball into a cheese tree … I guess?
Cheese trees are simple to make, but depending on how much you care about appearances, they may take a lot of time and effort. Following a recipe from Betty Crocker, I mixed softened cream cheese, shredded cheddar cheese, and pesto together and put the mixture in the refrigerator to chill. After the cheese mixture had set up, I took it out and shaped it into a cone. For the leaves, I lined the sides of the cone with cilantro (I would have used parsley if either of the grocery stores I went to actually had parsley), and proceeded to decorate my tree with bits of red bell pepper and almonds. To complete the Christmas tree look, I topped my cheese tree with a star delicately cut from lemon peel. After surrounding my tree with crackers, I felt like I was ready to take my presents out from under the tree, scrape them down the sides of the tree, and devour them with utmost cheer. What I just described is what I did with the cheese tree, not with my actual Christmas tree.
I do not really have much to say about the taste of the cheese tree. It was like if you took salty cream cheese, spread it on a cracker, and ate it. The only part that was satisfying was seeing the cheese tree grow smaller and smaller in size as I ate it. The effort that went into shaping and decorating the tree wasn’t worth the reward, so I recommend you steer clear of the cheese tree unless you want to feel cute this Christmas and make it known to your like-minded friends that you made a cheese tree. Maybe you could get an Instagram post out of your cheese tree too, but like my cheese tree when it went into the trash, that would be a waste of time.
Hot Dr. Pepper:
After spending my evening eating sugar plums and cheese trees, I was a little thirsty and was missing out on the commercial aspect of Christmas, so why not make this concoction from a Dr. Pepper Christmas advertisement I found from the ‘60s? The idea of drinking Dr. Pepper hot seems to hearken back to the time Dr. Pepper was marketed as a health drink, but believe me, there wasn’t anything healthy about it.
To make hot Dr. Pepper, I followed the advertisment’s instructions to heat Dr. Pepper in a saucepan until steaming, pour it in a glass over a lemon slice, and drink while still hot. I wanted to feel like a bartender mixing a fancy cocktail, so I added a step by muddling the lemon slice in the bottom of the glass.
The resulting drink was an abomination that should stay in the ‘60s from whence it came. It wasn’t that it tasted bad, but rather, every time I took a sip, I couldn’t help but laugh at how much drinking Dr. Pepper hot ruined the drink. When you drink Dr. Pepper, you expect a refreshing rush of liquid sugar to assault your taste buds followed by the sting of artificial flavoring that vaguely tastes like berry. This hot Dr. Pepper, meanwhile, tasted like you left some generic cola in your car for a few hours on a hot summer day and squeezed some lemon on it. Making it hot removed everything about Dr. Pepper that would justify drinking it. This would be a great way to give Dr. Pepper to someone who doesn’t like Dr. Pepper, or to disappoint someone who likes Dr. Pepper. If offered the choice between a hot Dr. Pepper and an ice-cold one, even if I was freezing in the Arctic, I’d take the cold one. I’m glad that I had this experience, but I’ll keep hot cocoa as my Christmas drink of choice for all eternity.
Overall, my journey into the world of bizarre Christmas food wasn’t a pleasant one. While I didn’t get any figgy pudding this Christmas (the recipe looked too hard), you readers deserve to end 2020 by eating something good this holiday season. And since many of you might not choose to spend the holidays with family with Santa Clara back in the purple tier, I advise you all to at least go all out on the food.