Holiday Recipes

One of the favorite things about the Christmas holiday for me is the food. Whether it's my mother's deliciously mysterious cookie recipes or the cholesterol laden thrice baked potatoes with "everything in the world that could block your arteries" thrown in for flavor; I live for that two week span between Christmas and New Years when circulatory caution gets thrown to the wind.

I've said before that most families hold on to traditional recipes for decades, even centuries. There's undoubtedly recipes in my wife's repertoire that date to a time when her ancestors were hunters and gatherers. The dead giveaway to this is when no one in the family can remember where a particular recipe came from.

This food tradition is great for family members because it's the glue that holds holiday traditions together over generations; sort of a "eating history", if you will. Recipes that are seldom written down but, instead, passed across generations by word of mouth. If they are written, it's usually in some strange dialect and scribbled on ancient parchment.

These foods represent a real danger to non-family members who haven't had an opportunity to build up resistance over time. The consequence of eating another family's ancient recipes can be disastrous, if somewhat embarrassing. Just imagine spending the post-holiday meal retching uncontrollably in the only open bathroom in the house; the one near the family room where everyone else has gone to digest their holiday meal.

So, in a tribute to all the gagging son-in-laws the world over, I dedicate the following dishes that could be some family's favorite holiday food.


Camel Heart Tartare.
Certainly a recipe that dates to prehistoric holidays when one had to eat what one killed on the spot. Without the luxury of fire. The other animal delicacies probably went early to the biggest and strongest hunters and this less desirable organ would inevitably get tossed to the children's rock.



Nose Fries
Invented by little Danny Doyle in 1986 while sharing a not-so-traditional holiday meal with his grandparents at a local Denny's restaurant. Little Danny was performing the popular "French fries in the nose" routine when he caught a heavy wiff of pepper.

The rest, as they say, is culinary history.



Buffalo Chip Cookies

No one is certain where this recipe originated. Many culinary historians suspect it was created by a tribe of plains Indians. Whatever the origin, Nestles' later bought the rights and created a less pungent version, renaming it Nestles' Toll House Cookies.

Happy Holidays and... safe eating.